{"id":168434,"date":"2026-02-25T11:17:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/168434\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:17:32","slug":"tampa-advocate-says-migrant-families-are-scared-to-leave-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/168434\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa advocate says migrant families are scared to leave home"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 There is still a lot of fear surrounding immigration in the Tampa Bay area. <\/p>\n

Tampa Bay 28 reporter Annette Gutierrez has been covering immigration stories over the past year<\/a> \u2014 since the Trump administration put strict immigration policies in place. Now, she is listening to an advocate who works closely with migrant families about how the anxiety remains very real.<\/p>\n

Watch report from Annette Gutierrez<\/p>\n

Advocate says immigration policies create fear in Hillsborough migrant communities<\/p>\n

From Wimauma to Dover, a large migrant community in Hillsborough County is being impacted by the newer immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Aurea Rodriguez has volunteered at a local church for nearly two decades, delivering food to needy migrant families in Dover every week. She said many are farmworkers in the strawberry fields, just trying to earn a living.<\/p>\n

“Like everybody else, they want to work, they want to be able to provide a safe home, food, to save money to buy a car, to send kids to go to college like every family. The only difference is that a lot of them don’t have a piece of paper that gives them the security to be here,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

According to the Migration Policy Institute<\/a>, Florida is home to about 1.2 million undocumented migrants. Rodriguez said the lack of documentation has created a lot of fear.<\/p>\n

“A lot of the families are really scared to go out,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez said the fear is also affecting the local workforce during one of its busiest times of year.<\/p>\n

“Right now, we are in the strawberry season, it’s \u2014 you can see not too many people are working picking in the fields,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Of the nearly 40 families she has helped, Rodriguez said almost a dozen have been taken into custody by ICE agents \u2014 including as recently as two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

“10 male and one female. She was walking with her two kids, the police stop and then after went with immigration. And in less than a week, she’s in Mexico,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

After one year of President Trump’s return to the White House, Rodriguez said she is not looking forward to his State of the Union address.<\/p>\n

“It’s really sad the way that we are going in this country. We need to be ashamed of what we’re doing,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Share Your Story with Annette

Annette Gutierrez knows safety is important for every community. She\u2019s focused on finding solutions and getting results for both crime and our roads. She takes pride in sharing stories from Sarasota and Manatee counties, so send Annette tips on how she can help.<\/p>\n

Contact Annette Gutierrez<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg rally marks 4 years since Russian attack on Ukraine<\/p>\n

Former Citrus County Sheriff Charles \u201cCharlie\u201d Dean Sr., who served the county for 16 years and later represented Florida in the Legislature, died on Monday.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg rally marks 4 years since Russian attack on Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 There is still a lot of fear surrounding immigration in the Tampa Bay area. Tampa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[205,80171,28,276,80172,80173,66646,135,3670,137,80174,136,80175],"class_list":{"0":"post-168434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-abc-action-news","9":"tag-dover","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-hillsborough-county","12":"tag-hillsborough-county-migrants","13":"tag-ice-arrests","14":"tag-migration-policy-institute","15":"tag-tampa","16":"tag-tampa-bay-local-news","17":"tag-tampa-headlines","18":"tag-tampa-immigration","19":"tag-tampa-news","20":"tag-trump-immigration-policy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}