Undocumented Texans brace for potential mass deportations

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DALLAS — In public, he uses his commanding baritone voice to rally and inspire people as an immigrant activist. In private, the 41-year-old man says he lies awake at night, consumed by fear and aware of the fragility of his life in the United States.

After coming to the U.S. at age 7 with his mother and two siblings from Monterrey, Mexico, the man — who is undocumented and asked to remain anonymous for fear of deportation — has spent most of his life navigating a U.S. immigration system that could send him back to Mexico at any time.

“People take for granted how beautiful it is to be free,” he said.

The threat of deportation that has followed him throughout most of his life in the U.S. became exponentially larger when President-elect Donald Trump won the November election after loudly and repeatedly promising mass deportations for immigrants who lack the legal authority to live here.

He is one of approximately 1.6 million undocumented people living in Texas. The state has one of the largest undocumented populations in the U.S. — second to California — making up about 15% of the state’s immigration population. The undocumented population represents roughly 8% of the state’s workforce, according to a Pew Research Center report.

Texas’ Republican leaders appear eager to work with the incoming administration. Gov. Greg Abbott has suggested there will be more cooperation between the state and federal governments. Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has offered the president-elect use of a 1,400-acre ranch in Starr County, which the state purchased in October, as a staging area for deportations. Trump’s pick to oversee immigration enforcement, Tom Homan, has said the administration will take the state up on the offer.

“The concern here is they have aligned themselves significantly with the administration — Texas will be ground zero for these deportations,” said Zaira Garcia, regional government relations director for FWD.Us, a pro-immigration lobbying group that advocates for immigration reform. “Texas will be ground zero for targeting immigrants.”

The Tribune spoke with some of those undocumented Texans in Fort Worth, Dallas, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, and many shared their worries about being forced to leave their family, homes, and communities behind if Trump follows through on his campaign promise.

“We saw this coming,” said Susana Herrera, a 50-year-old undocumented woman who lives in El Paso with her husband and has two grown children who are U.S. citizens. “He is coming with, like, more force, more power.”

For four years, the Dallas activist said he put up a strong front to mask his fears about being undocumented. He’s the co-founder of a nonprofit aimed at increasing civic engagement among Latinos, while keeping his undocumented status secret from people outside his immediate family and closest friends.

“I am not happy. I am very disappointed in this country and very sad about the situation I am in. I feel like my existence is threatened and that is the worst place to be in,” he said.

“Our blood is boiling in fear”

A 43-year-old Edinburg woman said she and her husband have spent years working in the fields picking onions, cleaning houses and picking up garbage since they came to the U.S. from Mexico in their 20s. Eventually, they earned enough to buy a home.

But now she fears losing it all and leaving nothing for their three U.S. citizen children.

“Our blood is boiling in fear because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said the woman, who also asked that her name not be published because she fears deportation.

The family is contemplating moving back to Mexico rather than wait to see if they’ll be deported. However, the dangers across the border give them pause.

“Here, we’re afraid because of the government, and over there we’re afraid because of what’s happening,” she said, referring to drug cartel-related violence that has plagued Mexico for years. It was the reason some of her relatives also left her hometown of San Luis Potosi to live in the U.S., she said.

“We don’t know yet what we’re going to do,” she said. “We’re confused. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Back in Dallas, the activist worries he will be deported and have to leave his family, who all now live in the U.S.

Because he came to the U.S. as a child, he qualified for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, launched by the Obama administration in 2012, which provides temporary status to some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. He applied and got approved when he was 30, and he said he finally felt like he had a tangible safety net.

He lost that protection in 2020 when he said he couldn’t afford the renewal fee, which costs $555 to $605.

“When I lost it, I felt ashamed and angry with myself. It was like letting my family down,” he said.

Now, he is the only one in his family without protected status, a reality that weighs heavily on him. For him, identity and self-esteem has been shaped by U.S. immigration laws and policies. For years, he said he used the label “illegal” to describe himself until a mentor urged him to stop.

He said Trump’s rhetoric and push for mass deportations has brought back fears and trauma he was trying to leave in the past.

“We’re in a new reality that is much more dangerous, toxic for our community,” he said.

Resisting fear

At one of the dozens of flea markets throughout the Rio Grande Valley, located just yards away from the border wall, a Mission woman works among the makeshift shops selling produce, vintage electronics, used clothes, toys, shoes and furniture.

The woman, who also requested anonymity, said she and an older brother came on their own to the U.S. when she was 13 to find their mother. They first lived in the Valley but she went alone to Houston about three years later to reunite with her mother. Shortly after, she decided to move to Tampa, Florida, with her romantic partner, whom she met in Houston. They had two children and made a living in produce markets, cleaning fruits and vegetables.

After living there for 15 years, she returned to the Valley, where she found it easier to get by because of the larger Spanish-speaking population. Over the years, she’s started her own business and purchased property for her family, which includes her two adult daughters and three grandchildren.

For people who are undocumented, she said fear is always present, but that won’t stop her from living her life. Even if immigration officials raided the flea market where she works, she said that wouldn’t stop her from showing up for work.

“Fear is not going to stop us because we have a family to support,” she said. “If mass deportations happen, speaking for myself, it’s just a matter of starting over again in Mexico.”

A 37-year-old woman in Fort Worth who is currently applying for citizenship said she also is not letting fear get to her.

She said her parents brought her to the U.S. from Mexico at 8 and she never applied for DACA even though she was eligible for it. She said DACA protection wasn’t enough because it didn’t offer a pathway to citizenship and could be revoked depending on the administration in charge.

Today, she owns a small roofing company where she employs other undocumented Texans and said she is trying not to think about what’s ahead, because whatever the incoming president does is out of her control.

“At the end of the day this is not my country,” she said. “I am not afraid. I am leaving it up to God.”

Putting up a fight

Following Trump’s election win, advocacy groups and legal aid organizations have been looking for ways to minimize the threat of deportation for undocumented immigrants.

They’ve stressed the importance of consulting with an immigration attorney to familiarize themselves with their rights should they face deportation. Organizers have also urged lawful permanent residents who have green cards to apply for citizenship ahead of Trump’s return to office.

La Unión Del Pueblo Entero, a nonprofit that works and provides services to low-income and undocumented residents in the Valley, sponsored a “know your rights” training earlier this month in San Juan, where they advised undocumented Valley residents to make plans in case they are suddenly detained and deported. The organizers urged them to figure out who would take care of their kids and pay their bills in their absence.

A McAllen woman who attended their first training session last week said she is scared of the dangers she and her family could face in Mexico.

Her three children, two 14-year-olds and an 18-year-old, are U.S. citizens, which she worries will place a target on their backs if they returned to Mexico along with her and her husband.

“Many people who go with U.S. citizens are kidnapped because they think they have money,” she said. “And what happens to the children? They kill them.”

She works at a warehouse cleaning produce, and says some of her co-workers have already chosen to leave to Mexico rather than risk being deported without any of their belongings. She and her family will wait to see what happens, she said, though she admits the days will be filled with dread.

“There is fear,” she said. “We won’t have peace of mind when we go to work, when we go pick up our children from school or when we go buy food.”