The ICE raids that have terrorized immigrant neighborhoods like Ava and Sam’s in Chicago have been both highly performative and extremely random. Six weeks earlier, on September 9, GI Joe lookalike Greg Bovino, who previously served as ICE’s “commander-at-large,” arrived in the city with a caravan of unmarked, black vans to patrol Chicago’s immigrant-heavy neighborhoods. Three days later, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, an undocumented father of two from Mexico who worked as a line cook, and who had no criminal record, when he tried to walk them away. ICE officers began hiding on sidewalks, downtown, in grocery stores, at the Cook County Courthouse, in parking lots, at intersections, in alleys, and in neighborhoods like Ava and Sam’s.
By late September, allegedly following a “tip” about alleged gang activity – later found to be a complaint about squatters – ICE agents stormed a South Side apartment building in the middle of the night, descending from a Black Hawk helicopter and arresting 37 people while patrolling the sidewalks outside with masks and rifles. They kicked down doors, broke bookcases and overturned mattresses. In November, they violently dragged a Colombian teacher from the day care center where she worked while school was in session. It seemed like they could take anyone, at any time. Sam begins to receive glimpses of arrest and deportation from coworkers and Facebook groups. This news came from Ava’s phone, where she watched videos one after the other on TikTok. The more he clicked, the more videos appeared.
Ava, whose name I have changed to protect her identity, crossed the border before Donald Trump was sworn into office for the second time. Her husband, whom I’ll call Sam, came to America in 2022; He paid the Coyotes $12,000, which he had borrowed from family members, to make the seven-day trek. “Making the decision to leave your children and your family is a very difficult decision,” Sam told me. “You don’t know if you’ll see your family again.” After the dangerous journey, he settled in Chicago, where he got a job in construction. He worked grueling nine-hour shifts, six days a week, earning about $600 a week. He sent Ava home as much money as he could. When he was out of work, tired and lonely, he would call his wife and children on video chat. His daughter, who was a child at that time, would throw tantrums every now and then. He put her to bed every night; Now, when her mother would put her to bed, she would instinctively start searching for her father’s beard. When she realized it wasn’t there, she started crying. It took him a month to learn to sleep again. His elder son struggled more. One day he came home from school crying. Ava asked what was wrong. He had seen his friend’s father pick him up from school on his motorcycle, he told him—just like his own father had picked him up from school. “When will we see him again?” He asked again and again.
The family considered their options: It was too risky for Ava to cross the border alone with such young children, and they could not afford to pay another coyote. But living in Mexico seemed equally dangerous. Drug cartels patrolled their city, recruiting children as young as 13; The police provided little protection. One day, Ava receives a panicked call from her brother. they had two children Secuestro Express“Express-kidnapping” – a common phenomenon in their region of Mexico where gang members lure young children with candy or sometimes threats, then hold them hostage until the parents pay for their release. Ava’s brother raised $3,000 to get his children back – by selling all his possessions, including his tiny house.
Ava and Sam wanted a better future for their children. He heard from friends that he could apply for Temporary Protected Status, a Department of Homeland Security program that grants emergency asylum to people from countries with ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters or extraordinary circumstances. For many people, this is often the first step toward full asylum status. (The Trump administration has moved to revoke the status for 11 countries and does not consider Mexico an eligible country.) Ava applied during the Biden presidency and after waiting for almost a year, she was informed that she had been granted an interview in the United States that would expire in 15 days. Desperate, she packed everything she could into a large suitcase, gathered the children on their first trip to Hawaii, then took a taxi to El Paso, where she found herself, suddenly, facing U.S. Border Patrol officers.
Border Patrol agents took Ava’s DNA and biometrics and confiscated her passport. He examined the body and removed the internal layers of the family. But Ava still felt that Border Patrol agents treated her warmly. “I didn’t think they were rude or cold or rude,” he recalled. She’d heard the interview could take all day, but by noon she was free to walk out of the building and head to Texas. She called Sam, who booked the family’s plane tickets to Chicago. They gave her instructions on what to do at the airport, where everything was in English – a language she did not yet understand. She got trapped in this maze of confusion, repeatedly taking out her boarding pass so that someone could point her in the right direction. After the plane crashes into the foggy ground at Chicago’s Midway Airport, they clear customs and find Sam waiting for them.
“I was so happy,” Ava told me. “When you don’t see your family for two years, it was thrilling.” “We hugged each other very tightly,” Sam said.
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