A quiet upheaval is occurring in homes, schools, churches and workplaces across the country as families prepare for or avoid encounters with immigration authorities.
Some left the United States after decades of building a life here. Some people are considering putting their unborn child up for adoption to give their baby a better future.
Parents have appointed guardians in case their children are detained or deported, while others have stopped working, shopping or even leaving the house, relying instead on neighbors or churches.
The choice is very personal. Some are irrevocable.
Emma Confesser was pregnant with her fourth child when questions she never imagined began to keep her up. “Will her baby be given a better future being raised by someone else?”
Confesol, 39, immigrated from Puebla, Mexico, more than 20 years ago. But uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s efforts to abolish birthright citizenship led her to consider putting her unborn child up for adoption.
“It seemed unfair to me that the baby didn’t have citizenship,” Confesor said through tears. “We were considering adoption to give the baby a better future.”
For weeks, that possibility continued to haunt her. She said she had trouble sleeping, worried that her child would be denied the future she believed every baby born in the United States should have.
The convict was not alone.
In the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order, another pregnant woman said she was so desperate to ensure her son was born a U.S. citizen that she asked her doctor if she could induce labor early so her son could arrive before the policy took effect. Her doctor advised against it.
Then a decision was made that changed everything.
On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, rejecting the administration’s efforts to eliminate automatic citizenship for many children born in the continental United States to noncitizen parents.
In Confessor’s case, the fear that had dominated her pregnancy began to dissolve.
“I felt relieved,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘That’s not fair.’ I couldn’t sleep well because I was worried that this would affect me. It’s not just me, there are a lot of mothers who have babies here.”
While Confessor worried about her baby’s future, other parents were preparing for the possibility that they would not be able to be there to raise their children, who were born American citizens.
In Maryland, a Salvadoran mother signed legal papers naming Father Vidal Rivas, a local church priest, as her 7-year-old son’s temporary guardian in the event she and her husband are deported.
“It’s not easy to sign a document that hands your child over to someone else,” she tearfully told CNN affiliate Univision.
The uncertainty has taken a toll, she said.
“I keep thinking and thinking…I feel like my health is being compromised by just not knowing,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve been staying home and just praying that God’s will be done.”
She is part of a growing number of immigrant parents making contingency plans in case they are detained or deported.
Many families have already been forced to be separated. A CNN investigation released last September found that more than 100 American children, ranging from newborns to teenagers, were left without parents after immigration enforcement. Some were taken in by relatives, neighbors or family friends. Some were placed in foster care facilities.
At St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, Ms. Rivas was appointed as the stand-by legal guardian of at least 31 children whose parents feared being detained or deported.
“Many of these parents have no other relatives in the country,” Rivas said. “Some of them want their kids to stay here. I have a legal responsibility to them to make sure they stay in school and get what they need. There are also parents who want their kids to graduate from high school before they’re sent to reunite.”
Rivas said he plans to serve as guardian for as long as the family needs. “It’s like my own child,” he said.
For others, leaving is the only choice that still feels like their own.
Abdiel and Adeleine Dominguez have built nearly their entire lives in Minnesota. Abdiel, 6, and Adeleine, a toddler, arrived from Mexico and were both placed in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) custody. DACA provides temporary protection from deportation and work authorization for certain immigrants brought to the United States as children, but does not provide permanent legal status.
They married, raised four children, bought a house, and opened a church in Minneapolis.
But as immigration enforcement continues to tighten, they told CNN they are now afraid to go to the store or send their children to school. Abdiel also said he was told his commercial driver’s license would be revoked.
Instead of waiting to see what would happen, they sold their house, car, and belongings and headed to Mexico.
Seven months later, they were living with Abdiel’s mother in Morelos state, where the children were struggling with Spanish and enrolling in school, and the parents were trying to adjust to a country they were no longer familiar with.
“I don’t know anything about Mexico,” Adilene told CNN. “All I know is Minnesota. I’m shocked.”
The Dominguez’s set out on their own, bypassing federal programs. But the pressure they described reflects the Trump administration’s broader strategy to encourage migrants to leave the country voluntarily.
Project Homecoming, a $915 million initiative, provides free airfare and stipends of up to $2,600 to immigrants leaving the country through the CBP Home app. Internal DHS documents reviewed by CNN in March show that about 72,000 people have left the country through the program. More than half were already in ICE custody at the time of admission.
Additionally, so far this fiscal year, more than 72,000 immigration cases have been concluded through voluntary departure, compared to more than 35,000 in the previous year.
The impact is also changing the lives of Americans with mixed-status families.
CNN follows Julio Mendoza, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who has lived in the United States since he was 11 years old, as he prepares to leave with his American wife, Sasha, and their three American-born children in Pittsburgh.
Sasha said she was worried that Julio would one day be detained and unable to return home. Rather than risk the consequences, the entire family chose to move to Mexico together.
“Everything we do, we do together,” Julio told CNN.
For families who stay, the breakdown often unfolds quietly in the routines they have begun to abandon.
Across the country, immigrants are staying home from work, keeping their children out of school, and avoiding places like shops and churches that were once the center of daily life.
Jacobita Cortez, a United Methodist pastor in Chicago, said the fear has changed the rhythm of her community. “They’re afraid to go to the store or the supermarket,” Cortes told CNN. “Where are our people going? To the supermarket to buy tortillas and meat, to church to go to thank God.”
He said some churches have moved services online and congregations are working with neighbors and volunteers to help families who are too afraid to leave their homes, such as ordering groceries or arranging transportation to school.
“If you want someone to go shopping for you, all you have to do is pick up the phone and make a call,” Cortez said. For worried parents, she added, “Please find someone who can help, such as a neighbor or someone who will pick your children up from school.”
The same pattern is surfacing elsewhere. In Minneapolis and New Orleans, CNN found once-bustling shops and restaurants deserted during federal immigration checks as some immigrants avoided work and parents didn’t take their children home from school.
In Brooklyn’s Little Haiti, the normally bustling streets and shopping districts have gone quiet since the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
Local leaders also warned of ripple effects on hospitals, nursing homes and home health care, where many Haitian immigrants work.
For some immigrants, fear is no longer just about the possibility of deportation. It is reshaping the meaning of life in the United States.
