LISTEN: This week, some of the first people in Georgia without legal citizenship were reported to be detained by federal agents under Trump’s expedited removal policy, prompting hundreds from the Latino community in Hall County to gather to speak out against federal immigration policy changes. GPB's Sofi Gratas reports.
GAINESVILLE, Ga. — On Wednesday night in Hall County, Ga., hundreds from the Latino community gathered to support each other and speak out against recent federal immigration policy changes.
Protestors called for an end to the Trump administration's expedited removal policy, which has put many of their family members, or themselves, at risk of deportation.
Under expedited removal, people found to be in the U.S. without legal citizenship can be deported without appearing before a judge. Other federal and state legislation expands the scope of Trump’s policies.
Hall County, along with neighboring Gwinnett County and Whitfield County in the northwestern corner of the state, has one of the highest populations of Latino residents in Georgia, according to the Census Bureau.
But now, many in these counties have real worries about deportation.
![Local resident Saul holds up documents that list a person's constitutional rights if they are approached by federal agents and Juan Bernal (right) waves a Mexican flag during a protest in Gainesville, Ga., on Jan. 29, 2025, against President Trump's immigration policy. "To see all the young people here, lots of them come because their parents cannot," Saul said in Spanish. "This [gathering] demonstrates that there still is some humanity left in the world."](https://www.gpb.org/sites/default/files/styles/flexheight/public/2025-01/gainesville.JPG?itok=aYWaaCLc)
“In the Hispanic community, there is a lot of fear,” said Saul, a longtime Gainesville resident born in Mexico. “The kids are worried about their parents and the parents are worried about their kids.”
Some of the first media reports about federal activity targeting immigrant communities in Georgia happened this past weekend. People living in the U.S. without legal citizenship were arrested in the Atlanta area, parts of Coastal Georgia and Middle Georgia by federal officers and agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
According to the agencies’ social media posts, ICE has arrested 3,164 people nationwide since Monday and detained over 2,000. That includes an undisclosed number from around Georgia.
Some detainees were targeted through ankle monitors typically given to migrants actively seeking asylum.
“I feel like a lot of people don't know how it feels to have a parent or a fear of someone getting taken away from you,” said Elizabeth Aviles, a student at the University of North Georgia.
Aviles said her father just recently got a work permit and her mother is under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The Trump administration has threatened to end both programs, which means her parents could be sent back to Mexico after decades of living in the United States.
“He works three jobs just to make it through," Aviles said. "And it's pretty hard. And my mom, she went to school here.
"It’s the fact that a lot of them are being criminalized and they have done nothing wrong, and they are just here to give us a better life.”
On Wednesday, the president signed the Laken Riley Act into law, legislation with roots in Georgia that mandates the detainment and deportation of people without legal U.S. status who commit misdemeanors.
House Bill 1105, passed by Georgia lawmakers last year, makes it so that local law enforcement must pursue agreements with federal immigration agencies to aid in that effort. In doing so, local officers can arrest people based on their citizenship status and detain them at federal facilities.
By the start of this year, only 14 sheriff’s offices had formally entered into such agreements according to records from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts. That includes Hall County.
“They love our cheap labor, but they don't love our people,” said Melissa Mondragon, whose family is from Mexico.
In Gainesville, about 16% of people are foreign-born, according to aggregate census data. The city has one of the biggest poultry and meat processing industries in the world; the work is dangerous and largely relies on an immigrant workforce. Employees without legal citizenship are easily exploited. The same goes for Georgia’s massive agriculture industry.
“Do your worst so that you can see — so everybody can see — how dependent you are on us,” one mother, Jasmine Rojas, directs to President Trump and his supporters.
Standing with her son on a bridge overlooking the protest, Rojas says she wants immigration reform that creates an easier path for people to become U.S. citizens.
“There's so much that you take away from us now in just taxes that we will never be able to get back,” she said. “Let us become citizens and this country will be the better for it.”
Rojas, like others, worries about her parents, who have spent thousands of dollars in an effort to get U.S. citizenship, and now face deportation.
Trump recently rolled back protections that “thwart law enforcement in or near so-called ‘sensitive’ areas,” according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security. That gives federal agents the green light to search for people in schools, churches and hospitals.
“I have lived here 20 years and we have been through hard things,” Gainesville resident Saul said. “But there has always been respect.”
Saul said he worries about his community members who can no longer seek safety in places they once could go.
One mother also from Mexico stands behind her daughter who waves a sign condemning ICE. She did not want to share her name for fear of being deported, though she says that if it happens, she has done everything for her kids that she feels possible.
“I tell my kids not to worry," she said. "I have left them a house here where they can live as long as they take care of it. And that’s it; they are grown up."
