He got two texts from friends warning him about immigration raids and urging him not to leave his home, but staying inside all day meant breaking a promise he’d made to his father in Chiapas, Mexico.

It also meant missing work. Sundays are his busy day. Arizonans pay him to do their landscaping work in the brutal summer heat.

Fidel Perez thought about his dad, his wife, their 8-year-old son, 6-year-old daughter and their newborn baby. It didn’t feel like he had a choice.

He had to keep his promise. And he couldn’t afford not to work.

So he got in his red truck at 4 a.m., drove to his landscaping jobs and afterward to the small market in the Guadalupe Mercado town center.

Inside Luna Multi-services, a cramped shop with hot pink piñatas, wide-brimmed cowboy hats and hand-stitched traditional blouses from Mexico, Perez made small talk with the woman behind the counter.

He gave her his father’s name, paid a transaction fee and wired the cash. Smiling, he thanked the woman for helping him.

Perez was thousands of miles away from his dad and their hometown at the southern tip of Mexico, but he felt like a good son. He’d kept his promise.

It’d been harder for his dad since his mom died this past year. Without legal immigration status, Perez can’t go home to see his family.

He’s made a choice to live without legal status in the U.S. That doesn’t change, even on a day when everyone said he should stay home.

“I saw a message they sent me this morning that they were going to do raids today, right here,” Perez said in Spanish, standing outside the Mercado shops in the shade, away from hot sun. “I haven’t seen any raids, so I don’t know if it’s true or not true. But many have said Donald Trump was going to do raids.”

On Sundays the Mercado in Guadalupe, a small Phoenix suburb, home to a mix of Mexican and Indigenous families, usually hums with children laughing and families gathering for a feast of menudo, tacos or mariscos after church.

But this Sunday, the town center was desolate. Word had spread about mass Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in cities across the U.S. Phoenix wasn't among the named cities, but that didn't alleviate concerns for many in the metro area.

After work, Perez decided to drive through a big city park, just to get a sense of what was happening to families in his community. It was quiet, he said.

“They’ve always said the world’s going to end,” he said, shaking his head, thinking about how undocumented migrants live and think. “And the world hasn’t ended, thanks to God, our father in heaven above.”

Preparing for mass immigration raids

Migrant rights groups and civil rights and immigration attorneys across the nation have spent the past couple weeks readying undocumented migrant communities and their allies for raids.

Nationally, organizations have circulated know-your-rights fliers and videos in various languages to better reach migrants who don’t speak English.

In Arizona, Puente Human Rights Movement is hosting educational forums. Organizers are stressing that migrants do not have to open the door for police or immigration officials unless the officials have a warrant signed by a judge.

Some ICE officials take advantage of migrant families’ fears and lack of legal knowledge, telling them that an ICE warrant is all they need for entry into their home, Puente spokeswoman Maria Castro said.

“For the past two weeks and the rest of the upcoming week, we’re doing what we’re calling ‘The Resistence Tour’ and teaching people their Constitutional rights,” Castro said.

Castro said Puente is committed to sustained education because deportations and violations of migrants’ rights happen every week without anyone noticing or caring.

The organization launched a 24-hour hotline for people to call if they see or are experiencing a deportation. They shared the number, 602-252-1283, and warnings in Spanish and English through social media channels.

As of late Sunday, no one had called the hotline in Phoenix, where, so far, there had been no confirmed reports of mass ICE raids.

Still, the fear remains, Castro said.

ICE PROTEST:Protest against ICE roundups spills into streets of Phoenix

In a border state, in a city with the lingering legacy of a sheriff whose department racially profiled Latinos and targeted undocumented migrants, the Trump administration’s policies have left many families wondering if it will ever get better.

Castro said that Arizona officials who care about migrant families should be following in the footsteps of officials across the U.S., like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who made public statements that the city’s police department would not cooperate with ICE for deportations.

“I think the city of Phoenix, Mayor Kate Gallego and other mayors in the state of Arizona and other sheriffs, including Sheriff (Paul) Penzone, should be doing more to show their support for the people of our community,” Castro said.

In response to The Arizona Republic’s questions about whether Gallego has issued any statements about the raids or any requests for the Phoenix Police Department or other city officials about not cooperating with ICE or establishing other protections for migrants, Gallego’s spokeswoman Annie DeGraw provided a statement Gallego released in June after news first broke of impending raids.

“Immigrants are a vibrant and important part of our community,” Gallego said in the statement. “It is clear that our country’s immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. However, raids that stoke fear and separate families are not the solution to this problem.”

Castro said sentiment without action does nothing for migrant families and their loved ones.

Puente and other migrant-rights advocates have long called for Phoenix to mirror cities across the U.S., including in California and Oregon that have ended their contracts with ICE.

“ICE is still in our jails,” she said. “Even though Phoenix is not on the so-called target-cities list, there’s a lot of people who are scared — they don’t know if this is their last weekend with their families.”

'We have to keep going'

Perez migrated to Arizona in 1999. He’s lived in Guadalupe ever since, except for once when he tried living in a Phoenix apartment. In the city, he said, he missed a sense of community.

“It’s tranquil,” he said of Guadalupe. “I have my people.”

He moved back to the small town of about 5,500 people, known for its Pascua Yaqui Indian roots, a Catholic Church that welcomes undocumented families and for how the community battled former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio after he sent his deputies through the streets for an immigration raid.

Perez remembers the Indigenous and Mexican families who were stopped despite their citizenship status. Afterward, he said, everyone felt a sense of community pride, as some people filed lawsuits and town officials warned the Sheriff’s Office that they’d end their contract for services if the round-ups didn’t stop.

He thought fears for migrants would subside after Arpaio’s 24-year reign as sheriff ended when he lost his re-election bid in 2016. But that same year, Trump, who Arpaio campaigned for, was elected.

Perez says he won’t live in fear.

“We have to keep going, keep struggling,” he said. “We have to drive because if someone doesn’t get out and drive, how are we going to eat and how are we going to do things to take care of our family?”

A few months ago, he was stopped in Tempe. He said a police officer said there was a problem with his license plate. He said the officer threw him to the ground and handcuffed him. He said he was ticketed for not having a driver’s license.

“I don’t have a license because I can’t get one,” he said. “If I could, I would. I have car insurance.”

He said he was taken to jail. He thought about his family and being deported.

When he finally got to call his wife, she cried. She was pregnant, just a couple months from her due date with their third child, a girl.

Perez wanted to reach through the phone and hold her. He told her no matter what, he’d find her.

“If they take me, they take me,” he said, remembering.

He promised to call her from Mexico if he was deported. He told her to think about their baby, not him. He said he was released after 48 hours.

Their baby girl is 4-months-old now. He gets in his red truck every day when it’s still dark outside and his children are still sleeping. He kisses his wife good-bye.

He says he’s lived in Arizona long enough to have seen racial profiling, discrimination against Mexicans, and now he could see mass immigration raids again.

Perez has often thought about what he’d say if he had a chance to sit with Trump and speak on behalf of migrant families.

“It’s really bad what he’s doing,” he said. “There’s so many Hispanics, so many, and they’re struggling for their lives, for their families, for everything, for their children.”

Over the years, he said, it seemed, maybe, politicians were close to coming together. And then it would fall apart.

“If God would bless us, we’d get immigration reform for all of us,” he said. “We’d be safe, working with papers. But Donald Trump doesn’t want to do that. Instead, he’s doing even more things he shouldn’t be doing.”

He worries it’s going to get much worse.

“Sometimes, I’m praying to my heavenly Father, to my blessed mother who’s in heaven, and I ask, ‘Why is this happening?’” he said, taking a long breath. “We’re just here struggling for our lives, working. If the world is like this, maybe it does mean the world is going to end.”

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