A Mother Took Her Sons to an ICE Check-In. She Never Saw Them Again.
No criminal records. Pursuing green cards. Under Trump, it doesn’t matter.
Alma Lopez Diaz was sitting in a waiting room of 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan when an officer came out with one of her son’s wallets and another’s debit card.
She had walked into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office with her sons Josue, 19, an usher at the family’s church, and Jose, 20, a recent high-school graduate, to accompany them on a routine check-in with the authorities. She also brought her youngest son, Mateo, a nonverbal 8-year-old with Moebius syndrome, a neurological disorder, who has seizures and requires constant care.
Alma, 38, was alarmed. It had always been her custom to go as a family to the boys’ ICE appointments since they came from El Salvador in 2016 and after being denied asylum. She didn’t see why they should be targeted now, given neither had a criminal history — not even a school disciplinary record, says their lawyer. In their pastor’s “heartfelt plea” to immigration authorities, he described the brothers in writing as “free from vices.”
Yet at this check-in, the situation was different from in years past. An officer told Alma that Jose and Josue were now detained: “They are not going to be returning.”
Alma corralled Mateo and held the small black-and-orange wallet. She had not even said anything final to her two eldest. The room was full of moms and children. She tried to look behind a curtain through which the brothers had gone, but they were no longer there.
Such scenes have become more common all across America. Donald Trump has struggled to fulfill his campaign promise of deporting millions of people, with a Brookings Institute analysis finding total daily removals below Biden-administration levels. At the same time, the enforcement mechanisms of the new administration have been unleashed, as federal agents make high-profile arrests and triple down on partnerships with local law enforcement.
They are also ensnaring individuals with no criminal records and some who show up at ICE offices as required. Both of those were true for the Trejo Lopez brothers. The check-in can be an easy way for the agency to juice deportation numbers, says Camille Mackler, the CEO of Immigrant ARC, a collaborative of legal-service providers in New York. She also notes that lawyers are seeing more immigrants without criminal histories being detained. “When they can deport, they’re deporting,” she says.
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