Migrants in the USA Beg To Be “Invisible” at Christmas
More than 220,000 migrants have been arrested by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since President Donald Trump’s return.
HAVANA TIMES – Immigrant families in the United States face a bleak Christmas, separated from their loved ones and hoping to be “invisible” so that agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) do not detain them amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Mexican immigrant María Ramos is one of thousands affected in the United States. She will spend Christmas without her husband and her eldest son after both were arrested when they went out to work in landscaping in the city of Tucson, Arizona.
“We knew that at any moment they could be detained, but they had to go out to work to pay expenses,” the immigrant told EFE.
“My husband and my son are not criminals; they have never done anything to anyone. Now they are in a detention center,” she added.
The return of Donald Trump
Like them, more than 220,000 migrants have been arrested by ICE agents since Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025, according to data from the Deportation Data Project.
The start of Trump’s second term was accompanied by a hardline campaign against migrants that included mass raids across the country and the deployment of federal agents in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, among others.
Arizona, governed by Democrat Katie Hobbs, has not witnessed the massive deployment of federal troops to contain immigration, but raids and immigration operations are nonetheless common in this border state with Mexico.
“These holidays will be very sad; I’m even thinking about taking down all the decorations before Christmas Day,” Ramos said, recalling that she learned of her relatives’ arrest from a friend.
“He just told me: ‘they took them away.’”
The couple had been living irregularly in the country for 25 years and also have two citizen children, who fear that their father’s arrest could also lead to their mother’s detention.
Migrants in the US on the brink of self-deportation
Meanwhile, Ana Moran, a 29-year-old Venezuelan immigrant who also lives in Arizona, fears that her husband could be handed over to ICE and deported at any moment.
Her husband has been detained since August in the Pima County jail in Tucson, accused without evidence of a robbery at one of the homes where he was delivering food, the woman told EFE.
“I don’t understand when they say my husband committed this crime if I always went with him and delivering an order only takes a few minutes,” Moran said.
The couple arrived in the United States two and a half years ago after entering through the Nogales port of entry on the Arizona border. Her husband found work in construction and, in the afternoons, they delivered food and orders together.
Both were able to enter the country after requesting an asylum appointment through the CBP One application, established during the administration of former President Joe Biden (2021–2025).
That application, however, is now the same one the Trump administration is promoting for migrants to self-deport, under the promise of providing them with $1,000 to $3,000 and allowing the possibility of them returning to the United States in the future.
Nearly two million migrants have self-deported
As a result, Moran admitted that she is considering the option of leaving the country voluntarily, even though she has a work permit and her asylum application is pending, because she has been told that her husband could be deported by ICE.
To make matters worse, the lack of relations between Washington and Caracas worsens her situation.
“We Venezuelans don’t have a consulate where we can ask for help. If ICE deports us, we don’t even know where or to which country they would send us,” she said.
Nearly two million migrants have self-deported since January 20, according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while more than 600,000 have been forcibly expelled by authorities.
Moran and her family must appear before an immigration court for the first time in May 2026, but the woman fears that her husband’s legal problems will affect her case.
“When I go out on the street I ask God, make me invisible, make me invisible, so I can come back to my children,” she concluded.