Established, local Latin communities grapple with updated federal immigration policies
Pastor Lucas Presta leads the congregation at Iglesia Jesús Te Ama with spirited Pentecostal-style services in a warehouse office near the Annapolis Mall. Recently, he has hosted police officers and lawyers to help answer questions about local and federal immigration policy. Courtesy photo.
Holding her girls close, Brenda Yamileth made her way forward to the joyful last refrain of the praise band. The pastor called for prayers of unity.
That's why she came to this church in Annapolis, Yamileth explained. Two months earlier, ICE agents detained her husband while looking for someone else at the neighborhood market where he worked. She and her daughters, a toddler in tears and a solemn-faced four-year-old, hadn’t seen him since.
“Sólo pido ayuda,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m asking for help.” And the families at Jesus Te Ama prayed once more.
Faith feels more urgent than ever for Latino congregations like this one in our state capital as President Trump escalates his crackdown on immigration. Across Anne Arundel County, the Eastern Shore, and nearby suburbs, an immigrant community long active in schools, soccer leagues, and local businesses is on edge. Some parents keep their kids inside; others carry ID at all times. Fewer men wait near Home Depots to pick up work. English classes have moved online. Popular festivals are being scaled back. And even as new tortillerias and barbershops open, sales are down.
“We are witnessing a sharp increase in fear,” said Gabriel Rodriguez, director of the Annapolis nonprofit Center of Help. He’s seen it in missed school, skipped court dates, and families afraid to visit the doctor—or call the police. “These fears are not abstract,” he added.
In a Chesapeake Bay area known more for marinas than migration, at least one in 10 county residents is now Latino. In Annapolis, it’s one in five. The Hispanic population has surged since the early 2000s, part of a broader wave beginning in the Washington suburbs that helped turn Maryland into one of the East Coast’s most diverse states. Most recent migrants arrived from Central America, many of them fleeing gang violence and economic uncertainty.
As the Trump administration ramps up mass deportations, Latino advocacy groups are handing out wallet cards listing basic rights. Maryland lawmakers voted earlier this year to shield schools, churches, and libraries from raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And police in the city and county have promised not to check immigration status during routine traffic stops.
Even so, many Latino residents are worried about losing a stability they once took for granted. Over the years, they’ve settled into the familiar rhythms of suburban life—weekend rec games, fishing off the beaches and rocks at Sandy Point. Entrepreneurs have started restaurants, construction crews, and landscaping businesses from commercial Glen Burnie to the farmland south of Edgewater, and across the Bay Bridge.
In interviews across the region, a few naturalized citizens welcomed tougher enforcement as necessary, even overdue. But most unauthorized migrants—and some with green cards or visas—said they’re unnerved by new tactics like using tax records to target people for removal. They’ve followed arrests close to home and viral videos of ICE officers pulling people from cars and sidewalks. Tensions spiked after a Prince George’s County father became the face of several hundred men abruptly deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison.
“Things are changing fast, and it’s scary,” said Enrique, a 33-year-old home contractor who moved to the area from El Salvador in 2010. Like many undocumented immigrants, he asked to only use his first name. “We thought if you work hard, you make it. Now I don’t know.”
At Iglesia Jesús Te Ama, a church whose name reflects its mission, Pastor Lucas Presta has tried to offer “encouraging words and comfort.” Presta and his father, both from Argentina and now U.S. citizens, lead spirited Pentecostal-style services in a warehouse office near the Annapolis Mall. In recent months, they’ve also brought in police officers and lawyers to answer questions.
When Yamileth visited this spring, families nodded along as she described coming from San Salvador, eager to start a new life with her husband and young girls. But in early March, she said, federal agents showed up during his shift at a Latino market in town. Her husband wound up in a Virginia detention center, limited to only brief phone calls for weeks. He was released soon after she spoke, but is not being identified because their future here is uncertain.
Toward the end of July, the small congregation was stunned by another ICE arrest: the pastor of their sister church in Easton. Daniel Fuentes Espinal, a Honduran who had lived in Maryland since 2001 and studied under Presta’s father, was stopped after getting breakfast at McDonald’s. ICE found his visa had expired and held him for nearly a month before he was freed on bond.
“There’s a bit of disillusionment,” Presta said, “especially with narratives that sort of demonize our community. Some think: ‘This is not going to be the America we were told about.’”
In the past couple years, local parent Amy Marshall started an informal food pantry that has grown into the nonprofit, Marshall Hope, now one of the Anne Arundel County’s biggest pantries, located behind Annapolis Evangelical Presbyterian Church. That pantry has seen an uptick in families seeking their help. Photographs by Tony Lewis, Jr.
With a Little Help
Late on a chilly Thursday afternoon, in the parking lot of another church in West Annapolis, families waited in cars three deep. Volunteers hurried from car to car, waving drivers ahead, then loading boxes of canned goods, produce, milk, and diapers into trunks. The popup pantry serves at least 270 families each month—no questions asked.
That’s part of the appeal for regulars like Guillermo, who was 20 when he made the treacherous journey north from Guatemala. Now 46, he sticks to the kitchen at the Crofton restaurant where he’s a cook. He’s worried he could be deported, despite a full-time job and no criminal record.
“I don’t have any trouble. I pay my taxes. I have my family—my wife, my two sons were born here,” he said. “They don’t care. Who’s gonna take care of my sons if they send me back?”
Guillermo was not the only one trying to get by while staying out of sight. A Salvadoran mother sat in a nearby minivan, windows cracked, the youngest of her five children squeezed in back. She’s 41 and also undocumented. Lately, she’s lost cleaning clients.
“Look at what we’re going through,” she sighed. “There’s no work. Everything is expensive, the eggs, the meat. The economy is worse; the policies are aggressive.” It started with one family and a grocery run. When her landscaper died of covid at Easter in 2020, Amy Marshall got together with a few moms to help his wife and kids. Before long, they were delivering essentials to dozens of Latino families sidelined by the pandemic.
Marshall Hope now runs one of the Anne Arundel County’s biggest pantries behind Annapolis Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Fewer Spanish speakers have turned out in recent months for the church’s English classes—still in person, unlike many that have switched to Zoom. But the food lines haven’t let up. Neither has Marshall, who is 46 and a mother of four. One minute, she’s tapping a translation app to welcome a newcomer; the next, she’s sorting through onesies for the baby.
“We’ve always said, ‘You don’t need to worry about us. We just want to give you food and diapers,’” she said. “Most of our families are working multiple jobs, trying to keep up with inflation, trying to pay for a car, desperate to stay.”
Even some volunteers frustrated by the immigration system share that sentiment. Born in Colombia, Sara Lind settled in Edgewater after marrying an American and voted for Trump. She believes “the government is not working justly,” favoring those who cross the border illegally while her relatives struggle to get tourist visas. Still, she’s there handing out food.
“I want to help people,” Lind said. “I just want them to do it the right way.”
At the pantry, they’ve stopped asking for phone numbers. At nonprofits like the county Organization of Hispanic Latin Americans, (OHLA) walk-in clients navigating custody disputes or immigration forms hesitate to use their names. The group is rethinking large celebrations—Day of the Dead and food festivals—when so many are reluctant to be out in public.
“This is worse than covid,” warned Emanuel Fernández, OHLA’s director, who grew up in Argentina. “With sickness, you know if you take precautions, you’ll be ok. Today, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, anything can happen.”
Perseverance
Not everyone has pulled back. New Latino-owned businesses continue to open: shaved ice stands, a grocery on Hillsmere Drive. Proprietors are doing what they can, stocking trusted brands and reassuring customers.
Among them is Walter Vasquez, a 56-year-old who runs a string of groceries and eateries. His latest is a fast-casual tortilleria in Glen Burnie. At Sin Fronteras, his restaurant in Annapolis’ Latino hub off Forest Drive, he might be advising a cleaning contractor or catching up with the mayor. He speaks with the optimism of someone who left a village in El Salvador, avoided a civil war, graduated from college in Miami, and built one storefront at a time.
“Listen,” he said, “there is no way, and I shouldn’t say this but it’s a reality, no way that this country can live without the Hispanics. We’re one of the strongest labor forces you have.”
Yet Vasquez can’t ignore the toll—on customer traffic, morale, and the heightened precautions he and others are taking, like advising employees to head to the back office if ICE arrives.
“Is it affecting the businesses? It is,” he admitted. “It’s upsetting because some people that are trying hard to make a living, they’re afraid. They’re not only afraid; they’re not participating.”
At Brianna’s Dulceria, a Mexican sweets shop once tucked off West Street, Gicela Santos went days without a single sale. Her small store was filled with brochures for frosted cakes, pinatas, tamarind candies, and chili-dusted gummies. But by early summer, after two years in business, she had to close. Since then, she’s debated whether to relocate to Severna Park—or return to her hometown of Oaxaca.
“Sometimes, it feels like we’re investing and nothing is coming back,” Santos said in Spanish, adding she’s anxious about Brianna, her five-year-old who was the store’s namesake.
“I feel her; she’s a little sad,” she said of her daughter. “You have to have your papers. I have friends
who became citizens. But we Mexicans? No. It’s very hard.”
Left: Gicela Santos stands in her recently-closed Mexican candy shop, Brianna’s Dulceria. After two years in business, she had to close the store after sales plummeted in 2025. Courtesy photo. Right: Kimberly Lopez moved to Annapolis from the Dominican Republic eight years ago, and was sworn in as a legal U.S. citizen this past May after completing the citizenship program. Today, she hopes to sponsor her mother’s immigration to the U.S., but the process has been challenging. Courtesy photo.
Finding Resolve
Walter Vasquez has been in business locally for more than a decade, owning the popular restaurant Sin Fronteras, plus several others. He has seen, firsthand, the effect of aggressive federal immigration policy on local businesses. Photograph by Stephen Buchanan.
For months, longtime residents like Santos have searched for documents and direction, hoping to have a plan if confronted by immigration authorities. Some have applied for asylum, renewed work permits, or made backup plans for their U.S.-born children. Others wait and worry.
Legal paths are often out of reach for immigrants who have overstayed a visa or entered without one. Even those here for decades typically have to leave before they can apply for legal residency or citizenship. And with the administration canceling refugee and humanitarian programs, hundreds of thousands of people with temporary protections are also being told to go.
Guillermo, the cook, said he’s spent $20,000 on lawyers trying to adjust his status. He’s afraid to appear in immigration court, with ICE agents stepping up arrests at hearings and routine check-ins. “Everyone says when they try to get a green card, they get deported,” he said.
At least 12 million people, and possibly up to 15 million, live and work in the country illegally, according to recent estimates, roughly a quarter of all foreign-born residents. Latino community leaders believe the undocumented share is higher here, something that’s become obvious as fewer families show up at school events, church services, and shopping centers.
Kimberly Lopez understands the hesitation. Despite having a green card, and before today’s hardline enforcement, she avoided anything that could jeopardize her chance to become a citizen.
“It was really hard when I was in-between,” recalled Lopez, 32, who moved to Annapolis from the Dominican Republic eight years ago. “I felt like I didn’t want to have an accident or anything because I’d be the one losing. I’d talk to myself: ‘Oh I have papers, why am I so afraid?’”
Lopez has a degree in accounting, but like many immigrants, she took whatever jobs she could get: hotel front desks, Uber driving, dog-walking, babysitting. Her citizenship application was delayed, first by the pandemic, then by an overlooked signature. Once it cleared, she kept studying 100-plus civics questions, rewatching YouTube videos late into the night.
Eventually, she found a prep class at the Center for Help that steadied her nerves. She passed the test and was sworn in last May, cheered on by friends and a family she worked for as a nanny.
Newly engaged and settled into a sunny home in Glen Burnie, Lopez hopes to sponsor her mom to join her, after she was twice denied a visa to visit. Though they talk often, it’s not the same.
“I belong here now,” she said. “Some people don’t want to remember where they came from. I always remember. I’m an immigrant. I don’t want to forget my story.” Her mother’s bedroom is ready. The flowered quilt is pulled up, and the door is open.
