The Latino Economic Development Council launched a bilingual website this month that includes immigration legal assistance for Spanish-speakers.

Although the organization focuses on economic impact for Latinos in Omaha, Arturo Gonzalez, head of health equity and economic opportunity for the council, said the legal resources are inclusive of the entire state.

“We ensure that the influence that we have, we utilize it to spread the word as much as we can,” Gonzalez said. “We have conversations where decisions are being made to ensure that we promote the need for people to be educated about their rights.”

Amid the announcement of the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in McCook and recent arrests made in Omaha, Gonzalez said the Spanish translation for the website is critical. The council used the most neutral dialect of Spanish in the state, hoping that all Spanish speakers can navigate its website.

Gonzalez emphasized that not only non-citizens of the U.S. but every Latino in the community has been affected by the Trump administration’s immigration policies. He added the organization wants to combat the misconception that the only people affected by recent polices are non-citizens.

“Some people have this wrong narrative that it’s only individuals who are with an irregular status. The whole community is suffering. Our entire community is suffering,” he said. “We are scared of both of the current efforts that the current administration is doing to strip families apart.”

Gonzalez said the organization is concerned about what the potential negative economic impacts for the community and the state will be. A University of Nebraska at Omaha study from 2015-2019 showed that immigrant, majority Latin-American, demographics contributed billions of dollars of economic input and output supporting tens of thousands of jobs in the Omaha Metropolitan Statistical Area.

In June, ICE executed a worksite enforcement raid at Glenn Valley Foods, a meat production plant in Omaha. More than 70 workers were detained. The ACLU of Nebraska filed several federal lawsuits following the raid because in some cases the detainees were not released from ICE custody after posting bond.