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President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy separated more than 5,000 children from their families Mexico At the border during his first term, when images of infants and children taken from their mothers’ arms led to global condemnation.
Seven years later, the families are moving apart but in very different ways. With illegal border crossings at the lowest level in seven decades, mass deportation pressures are dividing families with mixed legal status inside the US.
Federal authorities and their local law enforcement partners are detaining thousands of asylum seekers and migrants. prisoners Are repeatedly transferred, then deported, or kept in poor conditions for weeks or months before being asked to go home.
The federal government held an average of more than 66,000 people hostage in November, the most on record.
During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and officials struggled to find children in a vast asylum system because government computer systems were not connected. Now inside the United States, parents are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their children remain in the US after an adult is deported, after living here for years or decades.
The Trump administration and its anti-immigration supporters see “unprecedented success” and Tom Homan, Trump’s top border adviser, told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep this going at full speed.”
Three families separated by immigration enforcement in recent months told The Associated Press that their dreams of better, independent lives have collided with Washington’s new immigration policy and that their existence is agonizing without knowing if they will ever see their loved ones again.
For them, migration marked the potential beginning of permanent separation between parents and children, a source of deep pain and uncertainty.
A family is divided between Florida and Venezuela
Antonio Leverde left Venezuela for the US in 2022 and crossed the border illegally, then requested asylum.
He got a work permit and driver’s license and worked as an Uber driver miamiWas sharing a home with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives in Venezuela and Florida.
LaVerde’s wife Jacqueline Pasado and their son accompanied him from Venezuela to Miami in December 2024. Pasado focused on caring for her sons while her husband earned enough to support the family. Pasado and the children received refugee status, but Laverde, 39, never got it, and one June morning as he left for work, he was arrested by federal agents.
Pasado says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents looking for a suspect in their shared residence. Finally, she and her children, then 3 and 5, recall that agents held Laverde at gunpoint.
“They became feverish, crying for their father, asking for him,” Pasado said.
Laverde was held at the Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. In September, after three months in detention, he asked to be returned to Venezuela.
However, Pasado, 39, has no plans to return. They fear that they could be arrested or kidnapped for criticizing the socialist government and being associated with the political opposition.
She works as a sweeper in offices and, against all odds, hopes to someday be reunited with her husband in America.
they followed the law
Yaoska’s husband was a political activist nicaraguaA country in the grip of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
She remembers that when her husband refused to participate in a pro-government march, she received death threats and was beaten by the police.
Yaosca used only her first name and requested anonymity to protect her husband from the Nicaraguan government.
The couple fled to the US in 2022 with their 10-year-old son by crossing the border from Nicaragua and obtaining immigration parole. After settling in Miami, they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has US citizenship. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with her third child.
In late August, Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His family was with him. According to court documents, her 35-year-old husband was detained and his credible fear interview failed.
Yaoska was left under 24-hour surveillance by a GPS watch that she cannot remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after spending three months in the Crome Detention Center, the oldest immigration detention facility in the United States and one with a long history of abuse.
Yaoska now shares family news with her husband over the phone. The children are struggling without their father, he said.
“It’s very hard to see your children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Yaoska said, her voice trembling.
They do not want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night and asks him.
“I feel scared in Nicaragua,” she said. “But I am scared here too.”
Yaoska said their work authorization is valid until 2028 but the future is scary and uncertain.
“I applied to several job agencies, but no one called me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”
He was detained by local police, then deported
Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. While working in construction, he started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant.
He was happy with the arrival of his son.
Amavilia, 31, said, “He was very happy with the baby – he loved him. He told me that he would like to see him grow up and walk.”
But within days, Edgar was taken into custody on a 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, the small farming town in South Florida where he lived.
She and her husband declined to give their last name because they were worried about repercussions from US immigration authorities.
Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Edgar, who refused to be interviewed, was handed over to immigration officials and taken to Prome.
“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I cant go.”
Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.
After Edgar’s detention, Amavilia couldn’t pay the $950 rent on the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three months, they received donations from immigration advocates.
Today, while breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook lunches, which she sells for $10 each.
She walks her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends the afternoon with her two children going door to door selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas.
Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any type of legal status. He said that his daughter becomes worried about the police. She urges him to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.
She said, “I am afraid of going out, but I always surrender myself to God and go out.” “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”