Brown skin.
Speaking Spanish.
Some North Texans say those are reasons enough for them to be nervous.
As immigration and deportation enforcement efforts ramped up, concern did too — particularly among some U.S. citizens of Hispanic heritage who worry they could be unfairly targeted.
So they began changing some behaviors, like always carrying citizenship identification, and, becoming a little quieter.
With U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Trump targeting areas in which Latinos live, shop, work and play, that's led to changed behaviors among U.S. citizens who worry about being profiled.
Or potentially shot, injured or killed.
Many now always carry a passport, communicate on encrypted messaging apps and avoid public places where ICE has been known to detain people — both undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens.
Tereso Ortiz, 76, is the founder and president of the cultural non profit Casa Guanajuato in Dallas.
"You have to be carrying in your wallet all the legal documents you can, because you don't know what they can detain you for," Ortiz said, speaking Spanish.
He said his wife is among those who take precautions. She insists on carrying more than one type of identification, and she gets anxious to simply go grocery shopping, he said.
"They know that sometimes, even just to go to run errands, they have a bit of fear," he said. "Now it is logical and natural that this happens, but it has changed a lot — life in the United States... a great deal."
In his 50 years of volunteering and serving Latino communities, Ortiz said that recently he's seen Hispanic people adjust their behavior and life choices out of fear.
"I have learned a lot and at the same time I have come to realize that there are many changes and accommodations that people make in terms of the pressure we have under this regime," he said.
Ortiz is a citizen of the United States and Mexico. Immigration enforcement was a difficult reality more than half a century ago when he first arrived. But now, it's become cruel and lawless, he says.
"They arrested one and did not separate families, as they are doing now," he said. "Now, unfortunately, they do not care about anything — whether they have applications pending or statuses processing. They take them by force and they have them locked up there for months and months.
"And since they no longer know what to do," he said, "they are deporting them. It does not matter if they have the opportunity to fix it or not."
Lucy Bocanegra's long, black, wavy hair falls down her back. She's petite and shorter than average, but bolder than most, she says — she won't back down from a challenge.
Bocanegra raised her three children in Oak Cliff.
Her older daughter, now 32, worries about her 19-year-old brother, Bocanegra said. His skin is much darker than his big sister.
So his sister fusses at him to always carry his U.S. passport and stay aware of his surroundings, like the family's rental properties.
Bocanegra can't constantly keep up with immigration status updates of renters in those homes — one of which is right next door.
"What if they're being looked for by immigration and they come and accidentally mistake the people there or even they're here at my house?" she said.
She inherited the homes from her dad, who self-deported before he passed away.
"What if they come looking for someone that he ran into, or even him, because my dad did leave the country voluntarily," she said. "I joke around with my son and I tell him 'You look a lot like your grandpa.'"
In some Latino households in Dallas, U.S. citizenship is generational — children may be citizens but their parents, aunts or uncles might not.
To protect them, they choose to skip opportunities to avoid calling attention to family members who are not citizens, even if they are legally naturalized or have residency.
Rey De Los Santos, an education services director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, recently guided a group of Dallas high school students through Massachusetts.
He wanted them to see that a university education is accessible. But he said some students worry about applying for federal aid because it requires parent information. Some have parents who are not U.S. citizens — so they worry about them.
Hundreds if not thousands of kids who are U.S. citizens and eligible for Pell Grants and financial aid are not going to apply, De Los Santos said, "out of fear that they will expose their undocumented parents who have worked, who do contracts, who own their own companies, but they don't have the documentation," which is needed to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.
The debate over what to do plays out on social media.
Some North Texans argue fear is not an option and that citizens should not concern themselves over possible detention or deportation.
But others point to confirmed cases of citizens, and legally naturalized and permanent residents being misidentified as undocumented or noncitizens.
They say until government policies, orders and inhumane treatment change, they'll continue modifying their behavior to avoid ICE's attention.
Got a tip? Email Marina Trahan Martinez at mmartinez@kera.org. You can follow Marina at @HisGirlHildy.
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