Trump’s deportation plans worry families with relatives in US illegally
PHOENIX — Jocelyn Ruiz remembers her fifth-grade teacher warning the class about large-scale activities patrols that would target immigrants in Arizona’s largest metropolitan area. She asked her mother about it and discovered a family secret.
Ruiz’s mother had entered the United States illegally and left Mexico ten years earlier in search of a better life.
Ruiz, who was born in California and raised in the Phoenix area, worried at the time that her mother could be deported at any time, despite her having no criminal history. Ruiz, her two younger siblings and her parents quietly held on, never discussing their mixed immigration status. They lived “like Americans,” she said.
According to figures, more than 22 million people live in an American household in which at least one resident is in the country without permission an analysis from the Pew Research Center of 2022 census data. That represents nearly 5% of households in the U.S. and 5.5% in Arizona, a battleground where the Latino vote could be crucial.
If Donald Trump is elected and fulfills his campaign promise the largest deportation operation in American historyNot only could it upend the lives of the 11 million people living in the United States without permission, according to the US Census Bureau – it could also devastate American citizens in their families.
The issue of immigration has been a cornerstone of Trump’s platform since he promised to “build a great wall” in 2015 when he announced his first Republican campaign for president. And despite polls show While Trump sees the economy as one of voters’ top concerns, Trump remains fixated on the issue, criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border as an existential threat to American society as Election Day approaches.
Trump’s plans for a crackdown have motivated some mixed-status families to speak out. America’s success depends on the contributions of immigrants, they argue, and the people who do this work deserve a path to legal residency or citizenship.
Others choose to remain silent, hoping to avoid attention.
And there are those who support Trump, even though they themselves could be targeted for deportation.
The political divide over immigration is deep: 88% of Trump supporters support mass deportation recent Pew researchcompared to 27% of voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.
Trump was asked about the impact so many deportations would have on mixed-status families when he visited the Arizona-Mexico border in August.
“Provisions will be made, but we have to get the criminals out,” Trump responded NBC News. He did not say what the provisions might entail, and his campaign did not share more information when The Associated Press asked for details.
Living in a mixed-status family is inherently precarious, because immigration policies and political rhetoric have ripple effects for U.S. citizens and legal residents, says Heide Castañeda, a professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida.
“For most Americans, it is not common to navigate your daily life with the thought that someone in your family may be taken,” says Castañeda, author of “Borders of Belonging: Struggle and Solidarity in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families.” “But for families of mixed status, that is of course always on their minds.”
Politicians, she said, “think they are targeting a certain group, but these groups live in families and communities and households and neighborhoods.”
In Nevada, California, New Jersey and Texas, nearly one in 10 households are made up of people living in the U.S. without legal permission, according to Pew. Many have lived in the country for decades and have U.S. citizens who depend on them.
Michael Kagan, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the recent arrivals are not representative of Nevada’s population.
“The vast majority have lived here for more than a decade,” Kagan said, warning that their U.S. citizen relatives could be inadvertently swept away.
Erika Andriola, 37, a longtime advocate for immigrants in Arizona, witnessed her mother and brother being detained by immigration agents in 2013. She led a successful campaign that led to their release, but she now suffers from PTSD and separation anxiety as a result of that day.
“It was like constant nightmares. I woke up crying,” Andriola said. She and her brother now live legally in the country, but their 66-year-old mother has been fighting her deportation in court since 2017.
It’s an experience Andriola wouldn’t wish on anyone – and she says the emotional and economic toll can affect entire communities.
Betzaida Robinson’s brother was deported to Mexico several years ago, despite never having lived there. An integral member of the Phoenix family, he had helped pay the bills and raise her two children.
Robinson said Trump and his supporters shouldn’t think about what it’s like to have a loved one taken away.
“What would you do if you were in that position, and how would you feel?” she said.
Yet there are people living in the country illegally who support Trump, says Castañeda, the university professor. Even Andriola says she has relatives who do.
“They don’t necessarily think about what could happen to people like my mother,” Andriola said, “but they think about their own lives and what they think is best for them.”
Victoria Castro-Corral is a self-described optimist from a mixed-status family in Phoenix who advises students at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. She said she is confident there will never be a mass deportation plan — and credits her Mexican parents, who crossed the border illegally decades ago, for teaching her how to stay positive.
“We’re here to stay,” she said.
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Gabriel Sandoval is a staff member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.