Chicago-area children get deportation letters: Leave or ‘the federal government will find you'

Chicago Tribune

2 days ago

Thirteen-year-old Xally Morales stared blankly at a letter she received from the Department of Homeland Security last month. She could not read the dozens of lines in English addressed to her.
She arrived in the country from Mexico a little over seven months ago, crossing the southern border in search of safety. Xally knows very little English.
'They say I have to leave the country immediately,' the young teen whispered in Spanish, barely meeting anyone's eyes at a Chicago law firm on a recent Friday afternoon.
No explanation. No hearing. And no time. The night she received the letter, she said, the family went into hiding after her older sister translated the letter for her.
'Trump wants me to go back to Mexico. But how can I do that alone?' Xally told the Tribune. 'I'm scared ICE will come for me.'
Xally is one of at least 12 children in the Waukegan area — all unaccompanied minors from Mexico — who received sudden deportation letters from DHS last month, according to advocates. All of the girls legally entered the country within the past year under humanitarian parole as unaccompanied minors and were later reunited with undocumented parents or other family already living in the U.S. But despite that reunification, the girls are unable to be legally represented by their parents in immigration court due to the way they entered the country.
Immigration advocates warn that these cases are becoming more common, with a growing number of children now receiving letters from DHS ending their humanitarian parole. They say this could signal a troubling shift under the Trump administration: a move to strip asylum protections from children, even those with pending claims, and accelerate the deportation of minors without due process.
'Do not attempt to unlawfully remain in the United States — the Federal Government will find you,' the June 20 letter reads.
Unless their families can find and afford scarce legal representation, the children could be at risk of getting detained or could be forced to face a judge alone, advocates and attorneys said.
But an assistant secretary of DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, in an emailed statement to the Tribune said that 'accusations that ICE is 'targeting' children are FALSE and an attempt to demonize law enforcement.'
McLaughlin added that Immigration and Customs Enforcement 'does not 'target' children nor does it deport children.' The agency also does not separate families, she said in the statement.
Instead, 'ICE asks mothers if they want to be removed with their children or if the child should be placed with someone safe whom the parent designates.'
But questions regarding why letters are being sent to unaccompanied minors, like Xally, and what the protocol is to deport them, as stated in the letter, were left unanswered.
Sitting next to her mother in the law office that afternoon, she held her hand tight. Since receiving the letter, the two had been staying at a Waukegan church because they were afraid that ICE agents would suddenly show up to their home and take Xally.
Her mother, Francisca Petra Guzman, 48, arrived in the country in January, also as an asylum-seeker. The two, she said, ran away from domestic abuse and death threats.
But churches are no longer a safe refuge.
Instead, the pastor of the church, longtime activist Julie Contreras, escorted the mother and daughter to meet with a group of attorneys who could help them understand their options: return to the country they fled, possibly together to avoid detention, or remain in the U.S. for safety.
'As much as I tried, I couldn't provide for Xally in Mexico. I couldn't keep her safe,' Guzman said. 'Then my health started to decline. We had no other option than to come here.'
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office, DHS began widely sending these letters. While the agency has always had the discretion to revoke any type of parole, the practice has expanded significantly under his administration, according to the legal and immigration experts.
Minors, however, had not been targeted until now.
Still, the letter may not mean that ICE will in fact show up to the family's home or their school to deport the children, said immigration attorney John Antia.
Many of these children may qualify for other forms of legal protection, Antia said. The first step is meeting with an experienced immigration lawyer. That's something, however, that's often out of reach for families due to financial hardship or lack of understanding about their rights.
'Whether ICE can lawfully detain these children largely depends on each child's immigration status and individual circumstances,' Antia said.
When he learned that Xally and other children were taking sanctuary at a Waukegan church after getting the letters, he offered to meet with them, attempting to ease their anxiety and fear.
'The reality is that under this administration, no one is safe anywhere. They (immigration authorities) are unpredictable and desperate to meet a quota even if it means detaining a child,' Antia said.
'This administration doesn't care whether you are in the hospital, whether you are in the courthouse, whether you are in your home, definitely not at church.'
While Xally and her mother didn't leave the law office with clear answers about their future, they said they felt a small sense of hope. The attorneys said they would explore legal options to help Xally stay in the country, or at the very least, protect her from detention.
They returned to the church, packed their bags and went home. The fear, however, lingers more than ever.
Every morning, Xally wakes up wondering if agents will show up at her door the way they have been showing up to other homes in Waukegan and other cities near Chicago. The girl and her mother avoid going out altogether, spending most days watching TV, doing her nails, writing or reading.
'When I begin to feel anxious, I pray,' Xally said as she scrolled though a photo of her late father on her cellphone background. Her nails are painted in bright pink polish and glitter. She painted them while she was staying at the church with other children who received similar letters from DHS.
She said she is used to living in fear since she lived in Mexico. Only briefly after arriving did she think her life would take a turn for the best.
Xally still remembers the day she first saw Lake Michigan after arriving in the Chicago area. It was Sept. 19 of last year.
Before that, she had spent nearly a month in a Texas federal facility run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, surrounded by other children who, like her, had crossed the southern border seeking asylum.
'More than scared, I was nervous and excited,' Xally said. She was eager to leave behind a life marked by pain and instability after her father died from COVID over five years ago. When her mother remarried, they found themselves trapped in an abusive household, her mother recalled.
As the threats heightened, her mother desperately searched for a way to protect her youngest daughter. At first, she left Xally with her elderly grandmother in their impoverished Mexican hometown.
But soon, Guzman realized her best option was to send Xally to the United States, where her older sisters — both U.S.-born — lived.
Guzman herself had lived in the U.S. unauthorized as a teenager. It was where she met Xally's father. The couple decided to return to Mexico when Xally's grandfather was on his deathbed and they wanted to see one last time. Shortly after, Xally was born.
With the help of Contreras, founder of United Giving Hope, an organization supporting immigrant families in suburban Illinois, Xally was granted humanitarian parole as an unaccompanied minor and successfully reunited with her older sisters in Waukegan.
'It was a new start for a young girl with big dreams,' Contreras said. 'She arrived at a place of safety every child deserves.'
Over the past decade, Contreras has helped hundreds of children and mothers legally cross the southern border seeking asylum, assisting with paperwork and connecting them to attorneys to support their cases.
But now, about a dozen of those children, including Xally, have received letters from DHS ordering them to leave the country.
'This is deeply concerning and alarming,' Contreras said. 'These children are not the criminals Trump claimed ICE would target. They are victims of human rights violations and are being terrorized. Even if ICE doesn't come for them immediately, the threat alone causes severe psychological trauma.'
While Xally and her mother choose to endure the uncertainty, others cannot bear it and have opted to return to their native towns. Even when it means facing danger, Contreras said.
Sixteen-year-old Daneli Mendez, who arrived in the Chicago area last October, decided to go back to her native Veracruz, Mexico. After staying at the church with Contreras for nearly a week, terrified that ICE would arrive and arrest her, Daneli told her family she would rather return voluntarily than risk detention.
The girl has heard of others being detained in detention centers in poor conditions for undetermined amounts of time. Most recently, a 15-year-old Mexican boy was reportedly arrested by federal authorities and taken to Alligator Alcatraz, a notorious detention facility in Florida.
On July 5, just a day after Independence Day, Contreras escorted Daneli to O'Hare International Airport and watched as the young girl boarded a flight back to the country she once fled.
'It's heartbreaking to see their dreams shattered. But this is about more than dreams, it's about their safety,' Contreras said.
Daneli returned with nothing but a small backpack, a few English words she had learned, and a broken heart, leaving her family behind once again.
'She would much rather do that than be detained and deported,' Contreras said.
Under U.S. immigration law, unaccompanied minors, children under 18 who arrive at the border without a parent or legal guardian, are supposed to receive special protections. They are typically placed under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and granted humanitarian parole while their cases are processed.
But in recent months, immigration advocates and attorneys say the system is being quietly dismantled.
'We're seeing more and more unaccompanied minors having their parole revoked and being thrown into immigration proceedings where they're completely unequipped to defend themselves,' said Davina Casa, pastor and leader of the Monarchy Organization. The group provides legal guidance and other services for immigrants in Illinois. Its main goal is to reunify families.
Casas and Contreras have worked closely together to help Xally and other children arrive safely in the United States.
What's more concerning, she said, is that in March, the Trump administration cut federal funding for legal representation for unaccompanied minors. Only after 11 immigrant groups sued, saying that 26,000 children were at risk of losing their attorneys, did a court order temporarily restore the funding, but the case is still ongoing.
Those groups argued that the government has an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law to provide vulnerable children with legal counsel. That same law requires safe repatriation of the children.
But Casas is skeptical of that. Even if the funding has been restored, the demand can't keep up.
In April, more than 8,300 children ages 11 and under were ordered deported by immigration courts. That is the highest number for that age group in any month since tracking began over 35 years ago, according to court data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, as first reported by The Independent.
Since Trump took office in January, judges have ordered the removal of over 53,000 immigrant children, according to the data collected.
Most of those children are elementary school age or younger. Approximately 15,000 were under the age of 4, and another 20,000 were between 4 and 11 years old. Teenagers have also been affected, with 17,000 ordered deported, though that number is still below the peak seen in 2020, during Trump's first term.
Some of the children are unaccompanied minors, like Xally and Daneli, but it's unclear how many, since immigration authorities stopped tracking that data years ago.
In the Chicago area, it's hard to know how many children are currently being detained or deported, due to gaps in the available data. But according to data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Tribune, at least 16 minors were deported or left the U.S. after being booked in Chicago-area ICE detention centers during Trump's first 150 days back in office. Another seven cases are still pending.
If all seven of those cases result in deportation, that would bring the total to 23 minors — about the same number as were deported in the final 150 days of the Biden administration. But the latest available ICE data doesn't capture any efforts since late June.
When Xally learned that Daneli had returned home, she panicked. The two girls had spent a few nights at the church, confiding in each other the fear that few other young girls would understand.
'Would I have to do that too?' she asked herself. 'I don't want to. I like school here, I want to go back after summer break.'
Xally is enrolled at Robert Abbott Middle School in Waukegan, where she would enter eighth grade if she stays in the country.
Meanwhile, her summer has been shadowed by fear and uncertainty. Just days after receiving the letter, her family quietly marked her 13th birthday — no guests, no music, no gifts.
She can't even go anymore to the beach, a place that once felt like the freedom and safety she and her mother had desperately sought after being released from federal custody.