CLAY COUNTY – They may be behind you at the grocery store, replacing your roof, cooking your meal, washing your dishes, babysitting your child, sitting beside you at the traffic light or delivering your pizza.

They live in anonymity; many aren’t the dangerous felons and gangbangers the Trump Administration has deported.

They want to work and survive in the land of hopes and dreams. Undocumented immigrants left their homelands to escape poverty, oppression and despair, knowing the option of obscurity and perpetual fear is better than returning home. Now they’re moving deeper into the shadows, further off the grid, as if they never existed.

Life was easier for them when President Joe Biden was in office. There was a real or imagined perception they could move freely throughout the community without any consequences. That all changed on Jan. 20 when Donald Trump was sworn into office, because a cornerstone of his campaign was closing the southern border and deporting undocumented immigrants.

“People would rather not go out in public now,” said one merchant. “They’re worried. This hit people hard. Employers as well.”

The problem is mixed messages, according to Maritza Choisser, an immigration attorney who practices in Clay County.

“Even if they are documented, they are apprehensive,” she said, “because there is a lot of uncertainty. Immigration law is subject to changes overnight, and sometimes the changes are not quite clear. Even for immigration practitioners, there is a lot of uncertainty at this time, which causes a lot of anxiety in the community, regardless of their status. You just don't know what's going on. Some of the changes are made overnight, and some (of the laws) may be contradicting established law.”

Some states, counties and cities have declared themselves sanctuaries, where undocumented immigrants can’t be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials if they are arrested. ICE officials can’t be stopped from serving warrants in the community, but they can be restricted from entering state and local jails and courthouses.

That’s not the case in Clay County, Sheriff Michele Cook said. The agency has been one of only four in Florida participating in the Department of Homeland Security’s 287(g) Program where deputies are trained to interview inmates to determine their legal status. Their information has been fed into a DHS databank since 2019. If a suspect crossed the border illegally or overstayed their visa, they may be transferred to the ICE detention center at the Baker County Jail.

“We move to deport people, illegal immigrants, who've committed state crimes,” Cook said. “Once we wrap up their state crime stuff, we work with ICE to move them to Baker County.”

According to numbers provided by CCSO, there have been 565 encounters with people believed to be undocumented immigrants since Oct. 1, 2022. The report showed that most were not turned over to ICE agents; some were released because it was determined they were foreign-born U.S. citizens. Others were released before deputies received information about their true identities or as a result of prosecutorial discretion.

“We are identifying illegal immigrants who fall into one of five categories,” Cook said. “What we’re doing is: If they are a domestic security threat, a national security threat, if they’ve been deported and they’ve returned illegally, if they have a warrant or if they have an active order from a judge to leave the country, that’s what we’ve been working on the past month.”

Many people in the county who entered unlawfully from another country don’t fit those categories. They want to work, support their families and live without fear of deportation. 

Choisser said undocumented immigrants are easy prey because they have so few options, especially getting accurate information on immigration law.

“They should consult an immigration attorney licensed in the United States before taking action,” she said. “The information out there is complex.”

While more than 1,200 students in the Clay County District Schools don’t speak English as their primary language, Superintendent David Broskie said all students must have five pieces of documentation, including a birth certificate, to register for classes.

“Just because you can’t speak English doesn’t mean you’re in the country illegally,” he said.

In addition to a certified birth certificate, a student must have two original proofs of residency, a cellular telephone bill or bank statement, and proof of a medical HRS 3040 examination.

Those safeguards ensure all students are United States residents, Broskie said.

Since an ID is required to cash a check, rent an apartment, open electric or water accounts or buy a car, people without documentation rely on friends or family members to put leases, accounts and purchases in their names. Undocumented immigrants also pay their bills with cash.

It’s an underground group that lives quietly and unassumingly among us – maybe next door, and you wouldn’t even know.