It is the size of a credit card, it comes in 19 languages and is in the pockets and wallets of millions of migrants.
The red card, as its carriers know it, contains a collection of practical advice and legal rights for migrants who can be seen in the spotlight of federal agents.
Although the card has existed for almost two decades, the interest in it has shot in the last month, in the midst of a wave of anti -immigrant edicts of President Donald Trump during his first days back to the White House. The non -profit organization Center for Legal Resources for Immigrants has received orders from several million cards throughout the country, a demand that its printing contractor has rushed to satisfy.
Eliseo, carpet installer in northern California, keeps one in his wallet and another in the glove compartment of his truck. His wife, Maria, keeps yours in the case of the back of her mobile phone. His 13 -year -old son, American citizen, has distributed them among his classmates.
“You show the card to the agents,” said Eliseo, father of three children who has been in the United States for decades. “It is the one that speaks.”
Like other undocumented migrants interviewed for this article, he spoke with the condition that he was identified only by his first name.
The Constitution guarantees certain protections to all people in the United States, regardless of their immigration status. The card highlights some that are especially relevant to undocumented migrants, such as the right to remain silent, collected in the fifth amendment, and the right to deny the entrance to the home, collected in the fourth amendment, unless an agent has an order signed by a judge.
But as fundamental that are those rights, they have created frictions in the fight on how the country should address the illegal migration and how the authorities should treat the millions of undocumented who live and work in the United States.
For many of those migrants, asserting the rights outlined on the red card could be the difference between being deported or staying in the country. For the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE, in English) and other federal agencies that try to fulfill the president’s promise to carry out mass deportations, those same rights are an obstacle.
“They call it ‘know your rights,” he said last month in CNN The so -called Tsar of the President’s border, Thomas D. Homin. “I call it ‘how to escape the arrest’.”
Migration was a defining theme of Trump’s presidential campaign, which returned to the White House promising hard hand. In the first days of its management, ICE highlighted migration raids and deportation flights, but federal agents have had difficulty fulfilling the president’s expectations. Homan and others have blamed local officials, migrant rights defense groups and the media to hinder the efforts to apply the law.
Although deportation measures have given rise to less arrests of the promised, they have raised a generalized fear and have stimulated efforts to ensure that migrants, especially undocumented, know their legal guarantees. Organizations have been celebrating “knowing your rights” sessions to teach migrants who can hide personal information and refuse to sign documents. The proliferation of red cards underlines the growing anxiety and increasing efforts to counteract it.
From the elections, the Center for Legal Resources for Immigrants, based in San Francisco, has received orders from about nine million cards, more than in the previous 17 years together. Most orders come from non -profit organizations that provide them with schools, clinics and food banks, which in turn distribute them to migrants.
Caryn Shapiro, high school teacher at Columbus, Ohio, said he had distributed cards in nine languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, Pastún and Ukrainian. “Children, whatever their status, are terrified by ICE,” he said.
On a recent day, the contracted printing press to print the cards produced by hundreds of thousands. “All our staff is working on red cards,” said Troy Jones, who is co -owner of the company, Printed Union, from San José, California.
In a room, a printer threw 12 thousand sheets per hour, each with 84 cards in Chinese. In another room, card boxes labeled such as “Ukrainian” and “Russian” were placed next to each other on a shelf. The batteries in Arabic, Farsi, Creole Haitian, Hmong, Punyabí and Tigriña were ready to package, and the first lots would be sent soon in Amárico, Jemer and Portuguese.
A computer generated labels for orders, both to the Republican states and the Democrats. “We are literally sending all the states you can imagine,” said Jones, after receiving a call from a nun of Minnesota who asked for 250 in Spanish. “People need them as soon as possible.”
Migrants from Alabama to Alaska have been preparing information sessions. Todec, a legal aid organization from southern California, has distributed about 500 thousand cards and this week has celebrated a training class entitled “The Power of the Red Card”, which attracted 300 participants.
“The Red Card is a very, very powerful tool,” Sandra Reyes, EDEC educational coordinator, said in the session.
“You may get nervous if you stop an agent,” he said. “Simply take out the card and read it, or enter it without pronouncing word.”
After attending an act of Todec last month, an undocumented construction worker said some agents stopped him when he was heading to the Church on February 2.
When they asked if he had “papers,” Luiz, 40, gave the agents the red card and said nothing, he recalled. After they ordered him to get out of the car, the agents pressed him to reveal his immigration status, Luiz said. He said he remained silent and shook his head when asked if he had had problems with the law.
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Luiz said that, after reviewing the Mexican identification he carried in the portfolio, the agents verified his background and allowed him to leave.
“The red card saved me,” he said. “I tell all my friends to teach the card and shut up.”