CHICAGO (WLS) — A community gathering took place Saturday in response to the recent raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Chicago and other locations. Residents in Little Village expressed that they are currently living with fear.

There is a now an effort to provide help to those who are deported and possibly being sent to a country they’ve never been to before.

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With the Trump administration’s vow to escalate ICE operations in Chicago and beyond, a local community organization is seeking assistance from Mexican lawmakers. The initiative aims to reclaim their community as the effects of the immigration raids continue to evoke concern.

“Especially with the raids where they are kidnapping our people,” one person said at the Southwest Side community meeting.

The Little Village Community Council, collaborating with other organizations, organized a community meeting on Saturday to address the ICE activities. They invited two senators from Mexico to join the discussion on strategies to protect and assist Mexican nationals who have been singled out.

“We live with a lot of fear, the fear of being deported,” a speaker said.

The group highlights that ICE officers detain individuals based on profiles, denying them due process and often placing them in poor conditions within detention facilities.

“This approach has been aggressively executed by this administration to convey to detainees, ‘This is how we will treat you if you enter the United States and are captured by ICE; we’re going to strip away your rights, almost rob your essence,'” stated Baltazar Enriquez, President of the Little Village Community Council.

Participants in the meeting expressed their intention to continue opposing the immigration policies of the Trump administration. They are also appealing to the Mexican government for support for deportees who frequently return to a country where they neither know the language nor have acquaintances.

“We wanna make sure they have a support they need to come back to Mexico and be able to work and place their children in schools and all the benefits of our country provides them to have a new beginning,” said Karina Ruiz, a senator from Mexico.

Mexico has started a program called, in English, “Mexico Hugs You.”

The program is something a local man, Arturo Daza hopes will help save his 39-year-old son who has been deported. The concerned father says his son was detained after he was stopped by police, who discovered a man he was giving a ride to had a gun.

This comes as the Trump administration authorized National Guard troops to help support ICE in 20 states with deportation operations, and as the president says Chicago and other city’s with Democrat mayors are next.

READ MORE | President Trump says Chicago is ‘probably next’ target for National Guard troops

Despite Saturdays community meeting, communities like the one on the Southwest Side are bracing for more immigration raids as they vow to fight for their rights.