Woman distributes over 40,000 ‘Know Your Rights’ cards amid immigration crackdown

By Jocelyn Schifferdecker

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    WICHITA, Kansas (KAKE) — Coming from an immigrant family herself Maria Retana knows what it’s like worrying one of your loved ones will be taken away or questioned by immigration officers.

“We’re talking 15 years back where I had that fear that something would happen to my family members because of our legal status here and I didn’t want the new generation to have that same fear,” she said.

But as President Donald Trump began to keep his campaign promise to secure the border and signed executive orders changing some immigration laws, that worry and uncertainty is exactly what she saw.

“Part of his agenda was getting rid of criminal immigrants and so that kind of sparked up a lot of fear in the community,” said Retana.

She knew she wanted to do something to help so she made a card that listed what people’s rights are in case ICE does come. She and one of her friends went around the city and handed them out to people.

“Knowledge is power so the more we know the more empowered we are,” she said while explaining why this is so important.

Since then they have handed out more than 40,000 cards to people all throughout the state. They’ve also found more people to join their cause.

“We’ve distributed them here in Wichita and the outskirts of Kansas so Liberal, Dodge City, Ulysses,” she said.

Retana understands seeing news about ICE raids can create a lot of anxiety for many people. She says it’s important to be having these conversations right now so people know how to protect themselves and be prepared.

“As a community ,we need to stand together, as a community we need to be educated about what our rights are, what we need to do if anything happens,’ she said.

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