Days before President-elect Donald Trump starts his second term, many immigrants in the U.S. are scared and anxious.

Trump’s promise to deport people without legal status in the U.S. has put many communities on edge.

Nicolás, a 20-year-old from South America, told NPR he worries about the potential for mass raids by federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in neighborhoods and workplaces which rely heavily on immigrant labor.

“People’s rights will be violated,” Nicolás said in Spanish.

He’s an organizer with Resistencia en Acción, which advocates for immigrant rights and the working-class in New Jersey. NPR is only identifying Nicolás by his middle name because he worries about being targeted for his immigration status.

When Trump is sworn in on Monday, Nicolás says he won’t be at the restaurant where he works “because of all the attacks against us and all of the things we know could happen.”

So, instead of going to work, Nicolás is joining a rally hosted by an immigration advocacy organization in New Jersey he works with. The event, he says, “is so people know we are fighting for our people.”

It’s unclear what actions Trump will take to target people who are living in the U.S. without legal status in his first days or weeks in office.

The Republican has said he will start mass deportations on Day One. He’s also vowed to end automatic citizenship for those born in the U.S. to parents without legal status.

Trump won a second term in part by promising to crackdown on illegal immigration and bolster border security. He has vowed to prioritize the deportation of those without legal status who pose a public safety or national security threat. However, he hasn’t ruled out expanding deportations to include mixed-status families and other groups. According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released this week, 49 percent of Americans back mass deportations. 49 percent oppose his plans.

A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team told NPR in a statement that “he will deliver” on his promises, although she didn’t answer a question about timing and the incoming administration’s priorities.

Felicia Gomez, a senior policy advocate at the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, told reporters Wednesday her organization has been planning for a wide range of scenarios.

“We are prepared to meet the impending Trump administration head on — in the courts, in Congress, and at the state and local levels,” Gomez said. “We will use every tool in our tool box to defend civil rights and liberties of all people in our region.”

The ACLU is offering “know your rights” training for migrants in different languages. It’s also putting in teams to rapidly respond to any potential workplace or at-home raids.

CASA, a nonprofit organization that advocates for immigrant workers, has set up a hotline for people to call in and report raids, or ask for help for loved ones who’ve been detained. The line will be staffed around the clock.

Gustavo Torres, CASA’s director, said organizations also have to turn their attention to the local governments.

“We continue to push for state and local protections – blocking ICE access to DMV databases, restricting facial recognition surveillance, and shutting down immigrant detention centers,” Torres said in a statement. “We’ve secured countless state and local protections, and we will not stop until our communities are safe.”

Fear during Biden’s term

But Trump’s promises are not the only reason why immigrant communities are on edge. Under the Biden administration — which has deported a record number of migrants since 2014 — many haven’t felt safe.

Last week, Customs and Border Protection conducted arrests in California’s Central Valley. According to CBP, 78 migrants without legal status were detained during the 3-day operation. The agency says those arrested had broken the law.

Mario Gonzalez, the Deputy Director of Centro La Familia Advocacy Services in Fresno, Calif., told NPR people in his community are scared.

“Over the weekend, and days after people were not coming out, people were not leaving their homes,” Gonzalez said.

He said his organization has been receiving non-stop calls from people asking what they can do to protect themselves.

Employers have also gotten involved.

“This time around we are seeing employers actually reach out ahead of time and ask us for us to show up and do know-your-rights training to their employees,” Gonzalez said. “This is something new as well — not something that we saw a lot of prior to this.”

He says this is a sign of how some employers see the value of the immigrant workforce, one that could be decimated if mass deportations were to take place.

Presidential inaugurations are by definition historic acts, but when we think of past Inauguration Days there is clearly a hierarchy of historical pop.

Who could forget John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” in 1961. Or Ronald Reagan 20 years later relocating the ceremony for the first time from the East Front of the U.S. Capitol to the magnificent West Front facing the National Mall and the Washington Monument? Or the surprise of seeing the grand stage and spectacle reduced to the indoor space of the Capitol Rotunda in 1985 due to severe cold? The latter scene will have a reprise on Monday as plunging temperatures have moved the second Trump inaugural ceremony indoors.

As a rule, the biggest splash has been made by the newly elected presidents coming to the office for the first time, especially those elected in opposition to the party previously in control of the White House. These have drawn the largest crowds and inspired the most breathless anticipation.

Guests and spectators attend the 59th Presidential Inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

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Susan Walsh/Pool/Getty Images

The atmosphere itself seems to ask: How will things be different now in Washington, in the country at large and in the wider world? Such questions do not accompany the reelected incumbents, no matter how gratifying reelection and the continuation in power may be at the time. The thrill of Day 1 has rarely been as great the second time around.

Two transformative inaugurals

We have seen this transformative kind of Inauguration Day twice in recent years, with Barack Obama in 2009 and then with Donald Trump in 2017. Both were considered unlikely winners of their respective parties’ nominations. Both had overcome those odds on the strength of things they had done far from Washington and its measures of importance.

And so their inaugurations spoke of dramatic departures, even as they acted out the day’s rituals and touched all the traditional bases. The movements Obama and Trump inspired were quite distinct. Obama’s was later dubbed “the coalition of the ascendant,” an amalgam of younger voters, women and people of color. While these categories had leaned Democratic for several cycles, they came out in force for Obama and easily overcame the margin by which the Republican ticket still carried the white vote.

Attendees line the Mall as they watch ceremonies to swear in Donald Trump on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

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Trump’s movement had its own demographics, somewhat at odds with Obama’s, but it clearly revived the idea of populism as a force. In its earlier eras of prominence, the term had belonged to rebellious farmers and workers who felt Wall Street and the wealthy had locked them out. Trump’s voters shared a more political sense of grievance, a conviction that they had been sidelined, if not outright ignored, by recent presidents of both parties. They understood what Trump meant when he called the nation’s industrial base “American carnage” and knew he was talking about jobs and immigration and looming social change.

Different as they were, the Obama and Trump messages each met their respective moments. And the people — or at least many of the people — responded in numbers that overwhelmed previous notions of Inauguration Day turnout.

Obama drew a crowd that stretched from the Capitol grounds to the Washington Monument and beyond. While officials have stopped estimating crowd sizes, various fact-checking organizations have said Obama’s 2009 crowd was nearly double the size of his 2013 crowd, which still appeared somewhat larger than Trump’s 2017 gathering. Trump famously disputed this and gave various estimates roughly twice as high as most fact-checkers reported.

Barack H. Obama arrives to his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America at the Capitol Jan. 20, 2009, in Washington, D.C.

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But the larger point was that both candidates drew outsized crowds energized by many who had perhaps never thought of attending an inauguration before. In that sense they were like the streams of frontier folk who trekked muddy roads to Washington in the late winter of 1829, intent on celebrating their hero Andrew Jackson and crowding into the White House to do so. That too was a surge of populism, long before the term was in use.

Jackson’s first inaugural celebration has its place in history, along with a few others from the nation’s first century. American schoolchildren learn about George Washington taking the oath in Federal Hall in New York back before the designated capital of Washington existed. Many memorize portions of Abraham Lincoln’s first or second inaugural addresses, delivered from a stage built on the steps of the U.S. Capitol’s East Front steps. Lincoln seemed to be holding off the Civil War with such phrases as “mystic chords of memory” and “better angels of our natures;” and then seeking to “bind up the nation’s wounds,” in his second inaugural “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Dramatic addresses and developments

Few addresses could rival the tragic tale of William Henry Harrison.

“Tippecanoe” Harrison was elected the 9th president of the U.S. in 1840 but ran into exceptionally foul weather on his Inauguration Day. Ill but persevering, he delivered a lengthy speech hatless and coatless, went home to bed and died there a few weeks later.

But most Inauguration Days have been far more auspicious than Harrison’s, and some have marked turning points in the nation’s sense of itself. Far from being ceremonies only, they foretold much of what the new presidency would mean.

Franklin D. Roosevelt making his inaugural address as 32nd President of the United States on Jan. 1, 1933.

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The template for this in the 20th century was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first taking of the oath in 1933. He had already promised the American people “a new deal” in a campaign speech the previous summer. But it was on the day of his first inaugural that he broadcast the motto: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

The previous four years had seen the national economy plunge into what has been known since as The Great Depression. Roosevelt, a Democrat, won in a sweeping landslide over the incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover and carried in powerful majorities in the House and Senate – tall talk for someone who had never been elected outside New York before, but the phrases would define the spirit of the era.

One two-term president in recent decades actually may have had a more celebratory second inaugural event than his first. George W. Bush, who had been the Republican governor of Texas, lost the popular vote in 2000 to the Democratic Vice President Al Gore. But Bush prevailed by a narrow margin in the Electoral College because the Supreme Court in effect awarded him the electoral votes of Florida by calling off a weeks-long effort to recount the vote there. Bush was declared the winner in Florida by exactly 537 votes out of 5.8 million cast. Much of the country was still absorbing the shock of the events in Florida and the courts when Inauguration Day arrived.

Hundreds of demonstrators wave signs and shout as they march through the streets of Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2001, in protest of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect George W. Bush.

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At least partly as a consequence of that, and the 5-4 decision in the high court, Bush’s first inauguration in January 2001 brought out an unusually large contingent of vocal and visible protestors. But four years later, after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 had driven the president’s approval rating to record highs and fueled a win in the popular vote as well as the Electoral College, the atmosphere was more restrained. Because protests were expected, unusual numbers of law enforcement officers and National Guard troops worked the parade route in the afternoon and Bush and first lady Laura Bush got out of their bulletproof limousine to walk part of the route.

Testing and renewing traditions

That was a move introduced to the modern era by the 39th president, Jimmy Carter, who wanted to eschew the limo ride and walk the route at least in large part from the Capitol to the White House. He and his wife Rosalynn did that in 1977, a story that was often retold at Carter’s funeral and in other remembrances earlier this month. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

Another president who renewed the get-out-and-walk tradition was Bill Clinton, who did it in 1993 when celebrating his first Inaugural Day. Clinton also revived the inclusion of an Inauguration Poem, inviting Maya Angelou to present her work “On the Pulse of Morning.” Kennedy had initiated the feature by asking Robert Frost to read in 1961. Joe Biden refreshed the memory in 2021 when he asked 22-year-old Amanda Gorman to read her “The Hill We Climb.”

Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman speaks during the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

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Yet another tradition sure to be discussed during this year’s observations is the raising of private money to pay for Inauguration Day activities beyond the basics of the swearing in. These include the balls that are sponsored by the president-elect’s inauguration committee and by states and others. Debate over the influence donors might be purchasing with such participation reached a new high in 1981 when Reagan’s committee raised a reported $19 million.

This year’s committee, featuring million-dollar donations from tech giants Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, is expected to raise $200 million. The trio will attend the inauguration ceremony on Monday.

DETROIT — The Democratic Party begins 2025 with several looming questions about its future.

Among them: how to recover from losing the White House and the Senate, in an election that saw Democrats lose ground across nearly every demographic group; who will lead its national party apparatus; and how it will handle President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.

But as Trump prepares to retake the White House Monday, Democratic leaders have highlighted other results that show November’s losses are not fatal.

For example, many down-ballot Democrats outperformed the top of the ticket in competitive races, with the party managing to gain one seat in the House. That shrunk the margin for an already-tight GOP majority that struggled with infighting during the last Congress.

Democrats also saw record fundraising last year, and point to years of behind-the-scenes investment in voter data and campaign resources that they say has created a more coordinated and robust party infrastructure for future election cycles.

“No DNC has ever invested more resources into strengthening our state parties than this DNC,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Thursday. “So as a former state party chair, as a former state party vice chair and now as DNC chair, I take great pride in passing along this mantle to the next generation of Democratic national leadership.”

Harrison is not seeking a second term as leader of the DNC, so the current 448 DNC members will elect a new chair and other leadership positions at the party’s winter meeting on Feb. 1.

What new leadership will bring

At an in-person forum in Detroit Thursday, candidates seeking to help run the DNC largely agreed on the path forward for Democrats to regain power and the trust of voters who stayed home or supported Trump: year-round organizing efforts, more resources for state and local parties and spreading the Democratic message beyond traditional and friendly media sources.

Without control of the White House or either chamber of Congress, the new DNC chair is likely to be one of many national faces that will help shape the party’s messaging until the next presidential election, rather than serve as a singular figure with outsize influence dictating the path ahead for Democrats.

The two leading candidates for chair, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Chair Ken Martin and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, offered their views on how the role should fit into the larger party ecosystem.

Martin said he thinks Democrats should go on the offense against Trump and positioned himself as a more authentic representative of the party’s working class constituents than Wikler.

He also noted the party has a deep bench of Democratic elected officials who are the most effective messengers for what the party stands for.

“I mean, who better to talk about public safety than our mayors? Who better to talk about disaster relief than county commissioners? Who better to talk about education funding and other issues on the state level than our governors?” he said. “And so we have to tap into the rich, rich, rich diversity of elected officials we have throughout this country who are actually delivering on our party values right now.”

For his part, Wikler said Democrats should make their opposition known if and when Trump has unpopular policies around things like health care, education and Social Security. He also touted organizing victories in the purple state of Wisconsin compared to Martin leading the more-reliably blue Minnesota, and said that was the type of experience needed to head the party.

“Candidates are the people who carry the message to voters,” Wikler said. “A DNC chair needs to energize volunteers, needs to inspire people to run for office, needs to inspire people to donate, needs to lift people up, then we need to mobilize, and that means building a strategy in each state.”

When to fight, when to seek common ground

It’s not just national party leaders trying to decide whether a second Trump term should be met with full opposition, or an effort to find common ground where possible.

Members of Congress are also split, especially around the major Republican policy priority of illegal immigration.

A Republican-crafted measure that would direct federal officials to detain and deport migrants without legal status who have been charged, arrested or convicted of burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting, also known as the Laken Riley Act, cleared a key procedural vote Friday in the Senate.

Ten Democrats joined with the GOP majority to advance the bill, while 48 Democrats in the House voted to pass that chamber’s version of the bill earlier this month.

Then there are Democratic elected officials who will be on the ballot in 2026 — or who could run for the party’s presidential nomination in 2028 — who find themselves in a balancing act of signaling willingness to work with Republicans while also defending the party’s ideals.

“Now I don’t want to pretend we’re always going to agree, but I will always seek collaboration first,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a speech at the Detroit Auto Show Wednesday. “I won’t go looking for fights. I won’t back down from them, either, ’cause I’m not here to play games. I’ve got a job to do.”

While the Democratic Party searches for new leadership and grapples with its direction as the party out of power, Republican unity around Trump and his visions for governance provides a sharp contrast.

This week, members of the Republican National Committee voted to keep Michael Whatley, Trump’s pick to lead the national party, as chair while celebrating the success of the party’s integration with Trump’s campaign and political views.