Accompanying Families Facing Deportation by Ann Killian, OP
With federal immigration reform stymied since the 1980s, it’s been incumbent upon local communities to create alternative ways of welcoming and integrating new neighbors.
Sixteen months into the current administration’s mass deportation campaign, faith communities are organizing, with courage and creativity, to accompany our immigrant neighbors. The focus now is on halting the expansion of immigration detention centers and the separation of mixed-status families. In early May, I visited the Kino Border Initiative in the border town of Nogales, Arizona. A ministry of hospitality and accompaniment founded 19 years ago by Mexican Catholic Sisters, Kino provides holistic services to people on the move. At the shelter in Nogales, Mexico, mere yards away from the port of entry, the Kino staff and volunteers serve two meals a day, offer health care and legal consultation, and advocate for migrants’ rights. During our visit, we met several parents who had been deported from the US. Hearing their stories impressed upon me the urgency of supporting young people impacted by parental deportation.
One Mexican national staying at the shelter, whom I’ll call Carlos (not his real name), arrived in the US as a teenager. He lived in California for 27 years, started his own construction company, bought a house, and paid his taxes. One day, without warning, ICE showed up at his door in North Hollywood and arrested him. Not because he had done anything wrong—they simply knew where to find him after requisitioning his address and information from the California DMV.
This situation was preventable. We’ve known for some time that ICE can access information held by DMVs. That’s why municipal ID programs were designed to safeguard the identity of cardholders, who are not asked about citizenship when they register. With an official form of ID, city residents can apply for jobs, cash checks, and check out library books. Programs like the Elm City Resident Card, launched in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2007, offer accommodations for undocumented people who have come to the US, wanting to work and raise their children in safety. Even before the current administration curtailed legal asylum, people from working-poor backgrounds like Carlos had next to no options for authorized entry into the US. With federal immigration reform stymied since at least the 1980s, it’s been incumbent upon local communities to create alternative ways of welcoming and integrating new neighbors. Creative accommodations like municipal ID programs held out hope for inclusion. We need that kind of creativity now to accompany families targeted by immigration raids.
After ICE picked him up, Carlos was deported and separated from his four US-citizen children. Two daughters, still in school and working, are struggling financially. In December, they couldn’t afford groceries. Carlos wants to return to provide for them. When he had his construction company, he could do so easily. But in Mexico, he doesn’t earn enough.
Carlos is now in an impossible situation. Under current policy, people deported by ICE after living in the US for 10-plus years are charged with a misdemeanor under federal law and subject to a 10-year ban. For a full decade, their US-citizen family members are not allowed to sponsor their application for legal residence. They cannot even apply for a tourist visa to visit their children. If they are caught crossing back into the US to reunite with their families, the penalty levels up to a felony and permanent ban. Proponents of these harsh sentences say they act as deterrents to prevent people from attempting to cross. The truth is that federal immigration laws are designed to criminalize the poor, using racialized fear tactics honed during the War on Drugs to justify the mass detention and removal of people already living on the margins. The implementation of policies that nullify legal pathways to migration, while making border-crossing as deadly as possible, violate human dignity and the right to life.
At Kino, Carlos asks what we think of him and his situation. “I had the American Dream,” he says, “and I lost it.” He wants to be a good father to his children so they can pursue their dreams. One daughter is studying to become a pediatrician, the other an immigration lawyer. I wanted to reassure Carlos that his daughters wouldn’t be abandoned, that their schools would have resources to support them. I thought of my undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame whose parents are immigrants. When I ask about their families, these students say how grateful they are for the struggles their parents endured so that they could receive an education and choose their own path in life. These young people want to honor their parents’ bravery and sacrifice. They shouldn’t also have to fear for their safety.
The Brookings Institution reported in May that ICE has detained 400,000 individuals arrested within the US since January 2025. 145,000 US citizen children have likely been separated from a parent booked into detention. These parents are forced to make a terrible choice. At Kino, I met a working mom, whom I’ll call Jessica, who had lived in Houston since she was twelve. While waiting to pick up her 19-year-old son from work, she was arrested in an ICE raid. They separated her from her five children, including her baby whom she was breast-feeding. Although Jessica had no criminal record, she was detained in degrading conditions for six months—but not in the facility two hours away from Houston where her children could have visited. Instead, she was shackled and flown on a plane to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington. She could not afford an attorney to represent her in immigration court, where defendants are not guaranteed legal representation. When the judge told her she would be deported, she asked what would happen to her children. Her oldest son had driven the babies up to St. Louis, where her mother had stopped working to care for them. The judge said Jessica could have the children deported with her. But they are US citizens—why would she force them to leave home?
This devastating deportation policy leaves mixed-status families in emotional crisis and financial precarity. But in this time of catastrophe, local communities are mobilizing so that these families know they are not alone. The good news is that all of us can practice love of neighbor in three concrete ways. First, we can meet immediate needs by connecting with grassroots mutual-aid networks where we live. Those of us who are educators can offer additional support for students whose parents have been detained or deported. Second, we can advocate for an end to family separation and oppose the expansion of ICE detention centers. Ask your representatives to make accommodations for family members of US citizens already living here. Third, we can participate in public actions to show solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. Catholic parishes and schools have been holding prayer vigils and marches throughout the Season of Faithful Witness, culminating with processions across the country on the Feast of Corpus Christi (June 7). It’s time to offer a counter-witness to publicly funded displays of white supremacy and Christian nationalism by proclaiming the Gospel of peace and unity.
Today, in the face of persecution, immigrants are bearing witness to God’s Spirit of courage, love, and truth. Filled with that same Spirit, all of us can become advocates for migration with dignity. ♦
Ann Killian, OP, is a Dominican Sister of Peace and assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
Why not have a series of these reports from different parts of the country. A good way to keep people aware of the horrors that ICE is inflicting on our neighbors and friends. An absolute scandal.