It was 2016 and at a New Year’s Eve party at a farm in Evansville, Minn., Nancy Estrada was telling anyone who would listen how worried she was about her family.
Her husband, Julio Estrada Escobar, the father of their two children, was an undocumented immigrant. Donald Trump was about to take office for the first time with a promise to deport people like Julio, and she was terrified that their family would be broken apart. Over the years, she told me, they had fruitlessly spent thousands of dollars on immigration attorneys, trying to rectify the situation.
Her fears were well-founded. Within the year, Julio was sitting in a Chaska jail cell after being pulled over in Otter Tail County for a tinted taillight. (Taillights are supposed to be red.) It wasn’t long before he was deported to Guatemala, one of multiple central American countries destabilized by U.S. policies in the 20th century.
In 15 days, Trump will once again take office, and once again alarm is building among families with uncertain immigrant status. He is promising mass deportations, and you have to take him seriously. Border security and immigration issues drove many to the polls in November.
After Julio was deported, coverage by the Alexandria (Minn.) Echo Press stirred competing reactions among readers. Some expressed compassion for him and his family, while others assumed he had never tried to fix his immigration status.
“I am appalled that many of you by your comments seem to have no compassion or empathy and certainly lack any understanding of what this man and his family have experienced or of what this is like for them now,” one man wrote on Facebook.
Another commented, “Here for a decade and never even tried to get a visa? When people engage in criminal behavior like ignoring immigration laws they lose the right to complain about being arrested and deported.”
That just shows how little people understand the lengthy and complicated rules that cover the immigration system.