Maria Retana has spent many nights in the last few weeks schlepping a large box of small red cards to stores and homes around Wichita.
For Retana, distributing the Know Your Rights cards has become an almost singular focus since the start of the second Trump administration.
Retana and other local immigration rights advocates say they have passed out more than 35,000 Spanish language cards in Wichita, Haysville, Dodge City, Ulysses, Liberal, Overland Park and Kansas City.
“We just want people to be educated about what happens if you were to be stopped by [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or if ICE comes knocking at your door,” Retana said. “It’s super important for them to know their rights.”
The cards, which were designed by the California-based Immigrant Legal Resource Center, lay out the rights granted to someone in the United States when they encounter an ICE officer.
Know Your Rights cards have existed in various formats for years. They’re distributed by numerous organizations and come in about a dozen languages. The red cards have reached new levels of popularity in recent weeks as the federal government intensifies its immigration enforcement efforts — arresting about 8,200 people in the two weeks since the inauguration, according to ProPublica and the Texas Tribune.
Protections for citizens and non-citizens alike
Sarah Balderas, a Wichita-based immigration attorney and founding member of the Kansas Immigration Coalition, said that she can sum up the net impact of the changes with one word: fear.
“The federal government right now is enforcing immigration laws to the fullest extent possible, which in turn is creating a lot of fear,” she said.
Balderas said the last month has been a whirlwind. Her firm, Balderas Legal Group, has been inundated with meetings with people trying to start or restart their immigration cases and calls from people who aren’t sure of their rights under the new administration.
On top of that, the Kansas Immigration Coalition has been working to keep up on and fact-check reports of ICE sightings around the state and providing forums to answer people’s pressing immigration questions.
“With everything that President Trump has been saying, we knew that enforcement was going to go up,” Balderas said. “We didn’t think that it was going to happen so quickly.”
She said that the cards are a great way to slow down and guide someone through a meeting with ICE officers.
“When you’re in that moment, you go blank, you forget,” Balderas said. “That happens to anybody when you’re in front of a police officer, when you’re in front of a judge, you completely forget everything you were told to do.
“That’s what these cards are for — is just to be a guide for you in a time of crisis when you’re not thinking clearly.”
The cards state that if an ICE agent comes to your home, you don’t have to open the door, answer questions if the agent talks to you or sign any document without first speaking to a lawyer.
Balderas tells her clients if they’re confused about any documents ICE agents have with them to ask the officers if they can take a picture of the paperwork, and then send that to her or another immigration attorney for guidance.
The instructions on the cards are based on the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and the Fourth Amendment’s protections against search and seizure without a warrant.
While Balderas said the cards accurately describe someone’s rights, they won’t automatically stop an arrest. She emphasizes to clients that they can comply with ICE agents if they want and that they should know that if agents have a signed warrant, the agents do have the authority to arrest someone.
“Basically, you can’t stop the inevitable if everything is done correctly, but you can have a plan in place to make sure your family is taken care of if you are arrested and detained,” Balderas said.
That’s why Balderas advises clients to create plans, through power of attorney documents, that allow another person in their life to make decisions about their finances, take care of their children or make decisions for their family members if they are detained or deported.
Several clients have asked for red cards as they begin to make these plans, Balderas said. That’s when she directs them to people like Retana.
A Dreamer’s effort to empower
Retana, who is Latina, said that as the fear grew in her community, she knew she had to do something.
Soon after Trump’s inauguration, Retana received a message from her friend Carolina. Carolina, who asked not to be identified by her last name, said that she’d seen the red cards online and wanted to get some distributed in Wichita.
Retana agreed to help. The two women downloaded the card design from the Immigration Legal Resource Center, pooled their money and headed to City Blue Print with an order for 4,000 cards.
The next evening, Retana and Carolina spent two hours visiting business owners in the 21st and Amidon area. They popped into grocery stores, barber shops and wireless stores to ask that staff put out cards for anyone interested in taking one.
“We’d just say, ‘Would it be OK for us to leave these cards here for your customers to take?’” Retana said. “It might not apply to you, but it might apply to someone close to you.”
Retana knows how true that statement is. She’s a beneficiary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy that allows people who were brought to the United States as children to live, work and obtain driver’s licenses without fear of deportation. It’s a time-limited program and people that benefit, known as Dreamers, must reapply every two years to maintain their status.
Retana and her family came to Wichita in 2001. She said she thought of her parents as she passed out the red cards.
“I know if I don’t speak for them then nobody else wilI,” Retana said. “I feel a little more empowered this time around because I’m informed, and I know my rights.”
After distributing the first batch of cards, Retana posted about the campaign online.
That post kicked off a chain of events. Retana said her comment section was filled with people — friends and strangers — offering to help distribute the cards and sending her and Carolina money for a follow up order.
They went back to the print shop and ordered 20,000 new cards. This time, a group of volunteers met at a business off of Harry in south-central Wichita and worked to get cards passed out in the southern and western portions of the city as well as Haysville. The group sent cards by mail to people in cities in western Kansas and the Kansas City metro area.
And they kept printing. Retana said by the end of January, they had distributed red cards to more than 60 businesses around the state.
“We never imagined it would blow up this big,” Retana said. “I was literally in tears. I just could not be more thankful for the amount of people that showed up for us.”
