Seven years after images of crying toddlers at the southern border provoked worldwide outrage, family separation tied to U.S. immigration enforcement has returned in a quieter but equally wrenching form. This time, it is occurring largely inside the country, as deportation efforts tear apart households made up of parents and children with different legal statuses.
During President Donald Trump’s first term, the government’s zero-tolerance border policy separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the Mexico border. Today, illegal crossings are at their lowest point in nearly 70 years, yet immigration enforcement has expanded inward, targeting asylum-seekers and long-settled migrants. The result has been prolonged detentions, frequent transfers between facilities, and deportations that leave families fractured across borders.
Federal authorities and local law enforcement partners are detaining tens of thousands of people nationwide. Many are held for weeks or months in overcrowded or deteriorating conditions, moved repeatedly between facilities, and ultimately deported or pressured to abandon their cases and return home. In November, the federal detention population averaged more than 66,000 people, the highest level ever recorded.
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Unlike the chaos of the first Trump administration, when officials struggled to reunite children with parents because disconnected computer systems lost track of families, the current separations follow arrests carried out inside U.S. communities. Parents are taken into custody during routine check-ins, workplace stops, or traffic-related encounters. Some are detained for months. Others are deported, leaving behind children who remain in the United States, often after spending most of their lives here.
The administration and its allies describe the policy as a success. Trump’s top border adviser, Tom Homan, tagged the results as “unprecedented success” and told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”
Those words ring hollow for families caught in the system. Three families recently separated by immigration enforcement told The Associated Press that their hopes for safety and stability collided with the Trump administration’s hardline approach, leaving them suspended between fear, grief, and uncertainty about whether reunification will ever come.
For them, migration did not bring the freedom they sought. Instead, it marked the start of what may be a permanent separation between parents and children.
Antonio Laverde left Venezuela in 2022, crossed the U.S. border illegally, and applied for asylum. He found work in Miami as an Uber driver, secured a work permit and driver’s license, and shared housing with other immigrants to keep costs low. His earnings supported relatives in both Venezuela and Florida.
In December 2024, his wife, Jakelin Pasedo, arrived in Miami with their two young sons. While she stayed home caring for the children, Laverde worked to support the household. Pasedo and the boys received refugee status. Laverde, then 39, did not.
One morning in early June, as he left for work, federal agents arrested him. Pasedo believes the arrest stemmed from a case of mistaken identity, with agents searching for someone else living in their shared housing. She and her sons, then 3 and 5, watched as agents handcuffed Laverde at gunpoint.
“They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him,” Pasedo said.
Laverde was taken to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida. After three months in detention, he asked to be returned to Venezuela.
Pasedo, also 39, remains in the United States with her children. She says returning to Venezuela would put her at risk because of her criticism of the socialist government and her ties to the political opposition. She now cleans offices to support her family and holds onto the hope that one day they will be reunited in the U.S.
Another family’s separation began with political persecution.
Yaoska, who asked that only her first name be used, said her husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, where co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo maintain an increasingly repressive grip on power. She recalled him receiving death threats and being beaten by police after refusing to attend a pro-government march.
To protect him from retaliation, she requested anonymity for her husband.
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The couple fled Nicaragua in 2022 with their 10-year-old son, crossed into the U.S. and received immigration parole. They settled in Miami, applied for asylum and later welcomed a second child, a U.S. citizen by birth. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with their third child.
In late August, she attended a scheduled appointment at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in South Florida. Her family came with her. During the visit, her husband, then 35, was detained and later failed his credible fear interview, according to court records.
Yaoska was released under strict supervision, fitted with a GPS ankle monitor she is not allowed to remove. Her husband spent three months at the Krome Detention Center, the country’s oldest immigration detention facility, long criticized for abusive conditions, before being deported to Nicaragua.
Now, family life unfolds over phone calls. Yaoska says the children are struggling deeply without their father.
“It’s so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Yaoska said, her voice trembling.
She said the children often refuse to eat, fall ill frequently and wake at night asking for him.
“I’m afraid in Nicaragua,” she said. “But I’m scared here too.”
Although her work authorization is valid until 2028, Yaoska describes her future as uncertain. Job applications have gone unanswered, and the pressure of supporting her family alone continues to mount.
“I’ve applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”
For Edgar and Amavilia, separation came just days after welcoming a child.
Edgar left Guatemala more than 20 years ago and built a life in South Florida working construction. He and Amavilia, also from Guatemala and undocumented, started a family together. The birth of their son filled their home with joy.
“He was so happy with the baby — he loved him,” said Amavilia, 31. “He told me he was going to see him grow up and walk.”
Within days, Edgar was detained on an outstanding 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, a small agricultural city in South Florida. Fearing repercussions from immigration authorities, the couple declined to share their last names. Amavilia expected Edgar to be released within 48 hours.
Instead, he was transferred to immigration custody and taken to Krome. Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.
“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I can’t go.”
With Edgar gone, she struggled to cover the $950 rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For several months, donations from immigration advocates helped her survive. Now, while breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes at 3 a.m. to cook lunches she sells for $10 each.
Each day, she pushes her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door to door with both children at her side.
Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not apply for asylum or legal status. She says her daughter has become fearful of police, and she coaches her to stay calm and keep walking if they pass officers.
“I’m afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God,” she said. “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”
