On a late afternoon in mid-January, the last day of winter break, Angie was struggling to pack. She was flying back to California the next day for her second semester of college.
“I am the biggest overpacker,” she said, surveying a large pile of clothes that had erupted across her bed and the floor of her room.
“My mom and I are not overconsumers, but I just love clothes.”
Packing isn’t the only thing that’s hard for the 17-year-old college freshman. Angie and her family are close, and in her ideal world, she would take them to school with her, she said. Her dad, Davide, agreed. (We’re not using their full names or identifying information because they worry their immigration status could make them targets.)
“We've always been together,” he said in Spanish. “Every time she leaves, it's difficult.”
The separation felt harder for Angie too. As immigration enforcement has escalated under the Trump Administration, she is one of millions of children with undocumented parents who are grappling with new fears and difficult choices.
“I'm scared that if I leave, something is going to happen to my parents,” she said.
Angie was born in Aspen, but she spent her early childhood in Guerrero, Mexico, her parents’ home state, where her younger sister was born. In her dad’s hometown, there wasn’t much opportunity for education — most people had to work. Her parents wanted a different future for their girls.
They returned to the Roaring Fork Valley when Angie was 7 years old. For her parents, the move was about giving their daughters more opportunities. For Angie, it also meant growing up quickly.
She learned English and became her parents’ translator, figuring out tax documents, scheduling doctors’ appointments and booking oil changes. Her parents worked long hours, leaving Angie to take on a big chunk of the domestic responsibilities.
“I'd wake up and do my sister's hair, pack her lunch and then take her to school, and I'd pick her up,” she said. Instead of going out with her friends or joining sports teams or clubs, Angie was often at home, defrosting the chicken and making the beans so her mom could prepare dinner when she got home from work.
Academics were her escape. In high school, she took as many AP classes as she could. Her goal was to attend a university and one day, earn enough money to support her parents financially.
Angie had always wanted to go to college out of state, and last spring, she received an acceptance letter to a school in California.
But in June, a series of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles led to hundreds of arrests and deportations, as well as widespread protests.
Angie’s parents had always planned to drive her to California for the start of her school year, but suddenly the plan seemed too risky.
As the weeks wore on, she saw more headlines about ICE checkpoints and race-based traffic stops. Closer to home, there were reports of a surge in ICE activity in the Roaring Fork Valley and the I-70 mountain corridor. Angie made up her mind: there would be no family road trip to California.
She knew her dad, who always felt more anxiety about the prospect of deportation, would accept her decision more easily than her mom. Ángela was always the one who told them not to be afraid.
“Fear attracts fear,” she would tell Angie and her sister, reminding them that Mexico is their country; that they shouldn’t be scared to go back.
Angie told her mom one night while they were washing the dishes together, “You guys can't take me to college.”
Ángela reluctantly accepted her daughter’s reasoning. Still, Angie’s mom felt robbed of something precious — the kind of milestone that she and Davide had always been there for.
Angie instead had to figure out how to get to school on her own. Plane tickets were expensive, and she didn’t know how she’d fit all her stuff. She ended up flying to California in August for the start of her freshman year with her college counselor, Robin Colt, who paid for the trip with unused airline miles.
But the situation raised a bigger question: what would she do if her parents and sister were deported? She wasn’t 21 yet — the age that would allow her to sponsor green cards for her parents — and in any case, it felt like too much of a risk. More and more immigrants were being detained at routine immigration appointments.
Graduating from college had always been her dream, but not if it meant losing her family. If they had to leave, she decided, she’d go with them.
She struggled to explain her decision to others. “Why would you leave?” they asked.
“It’s my family,” she said. “I would rather be there with them instead of being in the midst of college things. Without a doubt, I would leave with my family.”
After a whirlwind few days of moving into her dorm and running to Target, Angie stood with Robin in the school gymnasium with the other incoming freshmen and their parents. A projector played short videos that students had made thanking their parents for their support. Angie told Robin she didn’t make one. She knew her parents couldn’t be there to watch.
Dr. Kenny Nienhusser is an associate professor of higher education at the University of Connecticut. When Trump was first elected, he interviewed mixed-status families about how they were affected by immigration policies.
Parents talked about their contingency plans in the event they were deported — telling their U.S.-citizen children how to handle the family car, house, and other assets, and deciding who would care for younger children.
Meanwhile, their kids spoke about avoiding travel and their fears about putting their families at risk, and what a deportation would mean for their education or finances. Nienhusser described these alterations in behavior and thoughts as “heightened fear adjustments.”
“To be able to carry that responsibility is really, really heavy,” he said.
Davide and Ángela have always told their daughters that if they learn to live where they are, and with what they have, they’ll be happy. Lately, they have struggled to follow their own advice.
In the past year, they’ve stayed home more. They only leave the house to work and buy groceries. It’s not worth the risk — the girls need them here.
During his commute, Davide often listens to a song by the Argentinean folk singer Facundo Cabral. In English, the title means “This is a new day.”
The song is a reminder, he said, that it’s never too late to start over — in case they are forced to return to Mexico.
In the meantime, they tell themselves this moment will pass, and they imagine a moment in the future: three years from now, they’re in California watching Angie walk across a stage, wearing a cap and gown, accepting her diploma.
