As a Colorado state lawmaker, Naquetta Ricks has fought hostile narratives about immigrants — that they take advantage of public money, that they’re largely criminals, that they belong to gangs.

“I’m upset,” said Ricks, who arrived in the United States from Liberia more than three decades ago, in a recent interview. “You never hear about the positive aspects of what immigrants bring — what we contribute as far as tax dollars, as far as labor, as far as science, technology.”

The rhetoric has grown more negative, she and several other immigrants said, amid President Donald Trump’s intense focus on deporting immigrants without proper legal status since he returned to office in January. But with immigration front and center in politics, even immigrants and migrants who are directly affected hold differing opinions about the resulting societal tensions and actions targeting their communities. Some argue that it’s tougher than ever to be an immigrant. Others counter that the United States remains a welcoming country and say Trump is following the correct approaches to stymy illegal immigration.

“What President Trump and ICE are doing is just following the rules,” said Alberto Bejarano, who immigrated to Denver from Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 2018 to escape political persecution. He’s been in the asylum process since then. “If you’re here illegally, you need to go and try to come back in a different way. That’s it.”

In recent years, Denver received an influx of more than 40,000 migrants — many of whom are Bejarano’s fellow Venezuelans — who traveled to Colorado from the southern U.S. border. The flow of new arrivals has slowed since early last year, in the final months of former President Joe Biden’s administration. Among them was Ender Rojas Rivas, who arrived in Denver from Valencia, Venezuela, in late 2023. He’s applied for asylum, secured his work permit and registered a small construction business.

Though Rojas Rivas, 47, has taken steps to reside in the U.S. legally, he’s concerned about escalating immigration enforcement under Trump, which has included more scrutiny of asylum claims from the past few years.