Migrant families and immigration advocacy groups are bracing for the potential separation of millions of families during President-elect Donald Trump’s planned mass deportations.
It is unclear how the deportations will take place and how families will be affected. But A recent study by the American Immigration Councila pro-immigration group estimated that up to 4 million blended families, some of whom are undocumented and some who are U.S. citizens, could be separated.
In states like Arizona, Colorado and Pennsylvania, mixed-status families, asylum seekers and advocates say they plan for scenarios where children could be separated from their parents.
Lilly, a US citizen in Pennsylvania who does not want to use her last name out of concern for her family’s safety, has been married to her illegal husband from Honduras for 10 years. Last week, she said she was taking her U.S.-born children to get their passports and plans to get powers of attorney in case her husband is deported.
“If something happens and my husband is detained or deported, it will be very difficult for me to get passports for my children, our children, to leave the country to see him,” she said.
Her husband was detained for nearly two months in 2017, during the last Trump administration. The experience affected him “mentally and emotionally,” he said.
“He made it clear that if it ever happened again, it wasn’t going to be ‘Let’s fight,'” Lillie said. It would be, ‘Let’s go,’ because he doesn’t want to go to jail again.”
Throughout his successful bid for the presidency in 2024, Trump rallied his supporters with the promise of the largest mass deportation effort in American history. Although Trump has said he will begin by prioritizing noncitizens who have committed crimes for deportation, the former president and his incoming administration have not ruled out separating or deporting families.
“Families can be deported together,” said Tom Homan, who has since been dubbed Trump’s “border czar,” when asked by CBS News last month if there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families.
Specific mass deportation plans are still being developed by Trump and his transition team, according to sources familiar with the planning He recently told NBC News considering reintroducing family detention and potentially building more prisons in non-border US cities.
In Tucson, Arizona, the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a group of more than 10 nonprofit organizations, helps undocumented and mixed-status families create “emergency packages” before potential mass deportations. According to organizers, the idea is partly based on past experiences where parents were detained or deported while their children were at school.
“We had cases where they called. We have had cases where we could not contact their mother and friends,” said Isabel Garcia, co-founder of the coalition.
The “emergency package,” which coalition members help families with at local workshops, will include basic documents such as a power of attorney for parental authority, the family’s emergency contact and the child’s school records.
Garcia said public interest in the coalition and its services peaked after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
“More people came to our meetings. More people called us. We’re full of people right now,” Garcia said.
Advocacy groups are also pushing for state-level changes in immigration enforcement that could result in deportation. Organizers at the Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson said they were prepared for the impact of Proposition 314, the tough state immigration and border enforcement law passed by Arizona voters in November.
The measure makes it a state crime to enter Arizona illegally between ports of entry and allows local law enforcement to arrest noncitizens and allow state judges to issue deportation orders. It also adds state penalties for selling fentanyl that causes the death of another person and providing false information to an employer or public assistance program.
Proposition 314 is one of several state immigration laws passed in the US to address what supporters say has been a record number of illegal border crossings under the Biden administration.
Scenes of asylum-seeker camps in borderless cities, as well as high-profile crimes committed by immigrants, have helped make immigration a key issue in this year’s elections in states like Arizona, which helped Trump return to the White House.
Parts of Arizona’s Proposition 314 cannot take effect until similar laws currently held up in court, such as Texas Senate Bill 4, have been in effect for at least 60 consecutive days. Some Arizona sheriffs have expressed concern about having to enforce the full extent of Proposition 314.
“It would create distrust in the community,” said Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, referring to the predominantly Latino jurisdiction he oversees. “They wouldn’t want to call 911. They would avoid calling us.”
Hathaway, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, says he’s also concerned about the lack of training and funding for the new law. He worries that a workforce of 40 deputies would be overstretched if he asked them to take on immigration duties in addition to the area’s general crime.
“We have no training to be immigration officers, and I will adhere to the same law enforcement fundamentals 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 United States.”
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 the number of daily arrivals has dropped significantly in recent months, Casas said his team has seen a “nonstop” surge of emails and texts from the community since Election Day.
Casas says he’s gotten messages from families asking if they can give his organization a power of attorney to do things like get kids on planes in the event of a separation.
The leader of the nonprofit organization says he is beginning to meet with advocates and families to discuss what is possible and how best to respond to such questions from the community.
He said that children also ask questions in the extracurricular programs he operates.
“They even ask if we will be deported?” “Are the other kids saying my friend is going to be deported?