The St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church Spanish Mass on Sunday mornings isn't unlike most services.
A young girl plays near the baptismal font, thinking it's a fountain. A elderly woman lines the children up to begin the ceremony. Father Uriel Salamanca steps up to the podium to address a crowd of immigrants.
But in the past months, some Sundays have featured another group of visitors: Lawyers.
Those lawyers were brought in to talk to the immigrants about their rights and what may happen if some are detained for a period of time or even deported.
"The church itself has taken a hands-on approach to protect the community just because what is being said on the news and from our president everyday," said Ana Perez, an SIU student and long-time member of St. Francis Xavier.
Perez has lived in the U.S. for 18 years, being only four-years-old when she left Mexico. She said her memories of her early childhood are vague.
"You just remember family members walking in parks but nothing truly stands out," she said.
For Perez, her home is the U.S.
President Trump has vocalized his intent to deport illegal immigrants since his campaign, and Perez's uncle, Jose Botello, is worried what such comments may mean for people in similar situations to his niece.
"What's going to happen if he came and sent people like her that's spent all her life in the United States?" he said. "What are they going to do over there?"
Jose Botello snuck over the U.S. border in 1995 as an illegal immigrant, using his cousin's green card to find work. He was granted amnesty in 1997, and by 2000, he gained U.S. citizenship. During his time as a resident, he worked to secure papers to bring his wife Guillermina into the country. They have now been living in the U.S. together for 15 years.
Jose Botello said he came to the U.S. to better support himself and his family because they could not afford living in Mexico. Now, he works as a landscaper.
"You can work hard and everything is expensive, and the pay is too little," he said. "It's one of the reasons I stay here in the United States."
The fear of deportation isn't unique to his family.
"Never during this time has there been such a gathering of trying to protect the community," Perez said. "Most politics aren't usually spoken about in church – just when we pray for people – so when the community is taking actions to protect their own, that's very important."
Since then, a group called the Southern Illinois Immigrants Rights Project has formed to sponsor similar workshops at St. Francis Xavier.
Ana Migone, a member of St. Francis Xavier, is a part of the group and said it was formed as group of Hispanic community members coming together to help other Hispanic community members. The group includes everyone from students to SIU faculty to housewives.
"We would not be able to stop the things going on," Migone said, "but we can at least make it so that they will not be such a terrible situation that they will not be able to take their kids with them or make sure their kids are taken care of."
Migone said this is the only one of the many outreach projects to appear in the midst of the Trump administration. Churches in Belleville have held workshops, as well. The Southern Illinois Rights Project is also planning to host workshops in Cobden in the future.
The main purpose of these workshops is to inform immigrants about Guardianship and Power of Attorney, which allows parents to designate a specific person to watch over their children if the parents are detained.
"When you don't have a child, you can imagine it," Migone said, "but you can't really fathom the desperation that you can have just be thinking that you will not have your child by your side, that your child may be in danger, that your child may not be able to eat."
"When you don't have a child, you can imagine it," Migone said, "but you can't really fathom the desperation that you can have just be thinking that you will not have your child by your side, that your child may be in danger, that your child may not be able to eat."
Guillermina Botello said one of the biggest fears in the community is what may happen to children if their parents were to be deported.
"There's worry, especially with young families who have young children," said Perez, translating for Guillermina Botello. " They're planning for the worst, hoping for the best, but it's always worrisome of leaving your children and going to work. And I think that wasn't there before. You would just go to work, and then you would come home. Now there's the worry that you won't come home."
Rene Poitevin, a member of St. Francis Xavier and coordinator of SIU's Hispanic/Latino Resource Center, said children are left to themselves often.
"They are horror stories, really," Poitevin says. "It's disruptive. It's very, very disruptive. Those cases are not that rare."
Poitevin, who moved here from Puerto Rico, said some undocumented immigrants are scared just to go to the grocery store.
At SIU, he said such fears are affecting students' their ability to focus on their schoolwork, and some have taken an indefinite break.
"I know of students who have left school to be with their parents in Chicago because they want as much time as possible with their parents before they get deported," Poitevin said.
Poitevin compared President Trump to a heater on high and said the president's promises to deport all undocumented immigrants and to build a wall along the southern border of the U.S. has led to mass fear among immigrant communities.
"For me, the wall is like the master metaphor for the broader narrative of the insider/outsider," Poitevin said. "Trump's language when he gets to Latinos has always been very derogative and disrespectful from 'these guys are rapists' to 'millions of illegal voters. To me, what is at stake here is what does it mean to be American in the 21st Century?"
Joe Botello does not believe the wall will stop immigrants from illegally sneaking into the U.S.
"If they build the wall," Jose Botello said, "[Mexicans] are going to starting digging or do something [else], so they are not going to stop."
