Migrant families and immigration organizations are preparing for the possibility that millions of families may be separated during the mass deportations planned by President-elect Donald Trump.
It is unclear exactly how the deportations will proceed and what consequences the families will have. But a recent study by the American Immigration Council, an immigration advocacy group, estimates that up to 4 million mixed-status families — some members of whom are undocumented and some of whom are U.S. citizens — could be separated.
In states like Arizona, Colorado and Pennsylvania, mixed-status families, asylum seekers and advocates say they are planning scenarios in which children could be separated from their parents.
Migrants wait at a processing center at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Dennis DeConcini Port in Nogales, Arizona, in June.
In Pennsylvania, Lillie, a U.S. citizen who did not want her last name used out of concern for her family’s safety, has been married to her undocumented husband from Honduras for 10 years. Last week, she took her U.S.-born children to get their passports and plans to have a power of attorney drawn up in case her husband is deported, she said.
“If something happens and my husband is detained or deported, it would be very difficult for me to get passports for my children and our children so that I can leave the country to visit him,” she said.
Her husband was detained for about two months in 2017, during the last Trump administration. The experience affected him “mentally and emotionally,” she said.
“He made it clear that if it happened again, it wouldn’t be ‘let’s stay and fight,’” Lillie said. “It would be ‘let’s just go’ because he doesn’t want to be in detention again.”
During his successful run for president in 2024, Trump has rallied supporters to pledge that he would undertake the largest mass deportation effort in American history. And while Trump has said he will begin prioritizing criminal noncitizens for deportation, the former president and his new administration have not ruled out separating or deporting families.
When CBS News asked last month if there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families, Tom Homan, who has since been dubbed Trump’s “border czar,” said, “Families can be deported together.”
Specific mass deportation plans are still being developed by Trump and his transition team, but sources familiar with the planning recently told NBC News that consideration is being given to resuming family detention and possibly building more detention facilities in non-contiguous U.S. cities.
People keep saying “Mass deportation now!” signing at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 17, 2024.
In Tucson, Arizona, the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a group of more than a dozen nonprofits, is helping undocumented and mixed-status families create “emergency packages” ahead of possible mass deportations. Organizers say the idea is based in part on past experiences of parents being detained or deported while their children were in school.
“We had instances where they called. There were cases where they couldn’t get in touch with the mother, their friends,” said Isabel Garcia, co-founder of the coalition.
The “emergency kit,” which coalition members are helping families create in local workshops, will include important documents such as a power of attorney for parental rights, family emergency contacts and a child’s school information.
Garcia said community interest in the coalition and its services has peaked since Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
“More people have come to our meetings. There are more people calling us. We are being flooded with people right now,” Garcia said.
Advocacy groups are also bracing for state-level changes in immigration enforcement that could lead to deportations. Organizers of Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson say they are bracing for the impact of Proposition 314, a tough immigration and border enforcement law that Arizona voters passed in November.
The measure makes it a state crime to enter Arizona illegally between a port of entry and gives local law enforcement the ability to arrest noncitizens and state judges to order deportations. It also adds state penalties for acts such as selling fentanyl that results in the death of another person and presenting false information to an employer or public benefits program.
Proposition 314 is one of several immigration-related state bills passed in the U.S. to address what supporters say is a record number of illegal border crossings under the Biden administration.
Scenes of asylum seeker camps in non-border towns and high-profile crimes committed by immigrants helped make immigration a major issue in this year’s elections in states like Arizona, helping Trump return to the White House.
A woman with a young child boards an ICE Air flight back to Honduras in Harlingen, Texas, in 2023.
Some parts of Arizona’s Proposition 314 cannot go into effect until similar laws currently being defended in court, such as Texas Senate Bill 4, are in effect for at least 60 consecutive days. And some sheriffs in Arizona have expressed concern about enforcing the full scope of Proposition 314.
“It would create distrust in the community,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said, referring to the predominantly Latino jurisdiction he oversees. “They wouldn’t want to call 911. They would hesitate to call us.”
Hathaway, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, said he is also concerned about the lack of training and funding related to the new law. He fears that his staff of forty deputies will become overloaded if he asks them to take on immigration duties, on top of the general crime in the area.
“We have no training to become immigration officers, and I adhere to the same basic principles of law enforcement as any of the 3,000 elected sheriffs in the United States,” Hathaway said. “I happen to be on the border, but my priorities are still the same as any other sheriff in the US.”
Fear in Colorado
In Denver, Yoli Casas runs a nonprofit that has helped thousands of the more than 19,200 migrants who have arrived in the city since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began transporting migrants to the area in May 2023.
Although daily arrivals have dropped significantly in recent months, Casas says her team has received a wave of emails and text messages from the community since Election Day that “hasn’t stopped.”
Casas says she has received messages from families asking if they could give her organization power of attorney to, for example, put children on planes in the event of a divorce.
The nonprofit’s leader says she’s starting to meet with advocates and families to discuss what’s possible and how best to answer such questions from the community.
She said children in the after-school programs she runs also ask questions.
“They even ask, ‘Are we going to be deported?’” she said. “And other kids ask, ‘Is my friend going to be deported?’”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
