The Dallas setting was safe and secure: a salon at the elegant Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

“Don’t panic,” said immigration attorney Daniel Stewart, toggling between Spanish and English. “We know that the president-elect has said many ugly things to gain the presidency. But now he is rolling back to the center...”

The crowd looked glum. They’d just viewed know-your-rights training videos that showed a woman being detained by a federal immigration agent. “Please, sir, don’t arrest me,” she begged. “I have little ones.”

Another scene showed agents pounding on an immigrant family’s door. The wife clutched her husband, whispering that agents must have a warrant signed by a judge with his name on it. “If you don’t have a warrant, I am not going to open the door,” the husband said.

Know-your-rights campaigns like these roll out with regularity at Catholic churches, mosques and Latin American consulates in Dallas and other cities with large immigrant populations. Worries focus on President-elect Donald Trump's campaign promises for deportations and tough vetting or even suspension of legal migration from Muslim-dominant countries.

Workshops like these coach immigrants about judicial warrants, the Constitutional right to remain silent, and how to handle a potential interview with the FBI.

Tutoring drills deeper into ICE administrative warrants, which aren’t the same as a judicial warrant, says Dallas immigration attorney Paul Zoltan. A judicial warrant from a judge is needed to enter a home without consent, and an ICE warrant won’t suffice, Zoltan said.

Zoltan passes out bilingual cards that immigrants can give to law enforcement officers which say that the person holding the card is exercising their right to remain silent. “If I am detained, I request to contact an attorney immediately. I am also exercising my right to refuse to sign anything until I consult with my attorney.”

Liz Magallanes, a Mexican immigrant, leads the group in remembering key points a few minutes before evening church bells begin to peal in downtown Dallas. “When you leave here today, what are you going to do? You are going to spread the word, right?” she said.

Afterwards, Magallanes, a 22 -year-old student at the University of Dallas, said she wonders, of course, what's ahead for herself. She was brought to Texas from Juarez as a child. Her undocumented life changed in 2012, when she received a work permit and deportation relief under a program initiated by President Barack Obama. It's called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Many simply refer to young people like her as los dreamers.

An optimist, Magallanes said, “Our communities thrive in the midst of hardship.”

Urgency

Know-your-rights workshops have been delivered in immigrant communities for decades. Now, there’s a sense of urgency about possible encounters with law enforcement -- local or federal -- because immigration was such a centerpiece of the Trump campaign.

That’s got those who favor immigration restrictions annoyed.

Jessica M. Vaughan, the policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., says efforts to "delegitimize immigration enforcement," may result in people being used as "political pawns."

“Some of the advice that they are given is appropriate like having a plan for your children,” Vaughan said. But, “hopefully, that will make people here illegally think about what they are putting their family in.”

Sometimes the information becomes disinformation, such as when people are told that they shouldn’t speak to a police officer or when they demand to see a judicial warrant, she said.

Federal agents from Immigration and Custom Enforcement can arrest immigrants on the street as they go to work, Vaughan said. If an immigrant is being picked up for a civil offense, a judicial warrant with the person’s name isn’t necessary, she said.

When pressed about a person’s a constitutional right to refuse to open the door to their home, Vaughan said, “These advocacy groups want immigration offenses to be treated like traffic tickets, and, on the other hand, they want all these processes to be treated as they are in the criminal system.”

And so the education campaigns continue. Even the Mexican and Salvadoran consulates in Dallas are holding know-your-rights presentations.

Mexican Consul General Francisco de la Torre addresses a large crowd at a recent community meeting in which fears were discussed about deportations of unauthorized immigrants. (Dianne Solis/Staff)

At another recent session, at the Mexican consulate, about 300 persons filled an upstairs gallery to hear the Dallas consul, Francisco de la Torre, detail the Mexican government's Estamos Contigo campaign, or We Are With You.

Nubia Torres, the West Dallas site manager for Catholic Charities of Dallas, was more direct. “First of all,” she said in rapid-fire Spanish, “people who have residency have the opportunity to apply for U.S. citizenship. It is so important that you take that step.”

Then, Torres warned people to be wary of scam artists. Some people claim to know immigration law and call themselves notarios, which in Spanish means something entirely different than a U.S. notary. "They can hurt you more than help you," Torres said.

'We're the FBI'

At a Fort Worth mosque a large crowd gathered after evening prayers and the first question is how to handle a knock on the door from the FBI.

They may just call it “outreach to the Muslim community,” and “sometimes a person may file a suspicious report about you,” said Nikiya Natale, the civil rights director for the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

“You should always, always, always have a lawyer present when speaking to the FBI,” said Nikiya Natale, the civil rights director for the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Interviews are voluntary but if you do speak to an agent remember, Natale said: “Lying to a federal agent is a federal offense punishable by jail time. Don’t even lie about what you had for breakfast that day.”

Natale says she has handled about 20 cases in the last two months of people called by the FBI, emphasizing that people need lawyers. An imam backs up her statements.

Already, the local CAIR chapter saw a jump in reports of hate crimes or aggression toward Muslims from 30 new cases in October to 70 new cases in December. More than half the cases in December involved a government encounter, said Alia Salem, the executive director of the CAIR chapter.

A case that really troubles them involves bullying, Salem and Natale say. There is a pending investigation of the suicide of a 12-year-old Muslim boy in which harassment over his religion might have been part of the cause, they say. Natale said they couldn’t give more details yet.