Litany: Stories from the Trump Deportations

A sampling of stories from the frontlines of Trump’s ongoing deportation movement

In writing my feature article This Time of Seige, I arrived at a problem. I wanted to list each arrest and deportation story I found but the sheer number of them began to overwhelm the piece. Rather than cutting them all, I decided to list them here to bear witness to each story, the people affected and their unique situations.

Let’s remember then that these stories represent just a few of the many lives affected as the Trump administration has ratcheted up the the arrest and deportation of immigrants, who were less likely to be targeted by previous administrations.

This listing represents those stories, which were lucky enough to catch the press or social media’s attention:

• ICE deported sole provider and caregiver, 27-year old Yancarlos Mendez, who was acting as father to a six-year old paraplegic boy.
• ICE arrested a 29-year-old Dreamer Christian Gomez Garcia in court for a traffic ticket. Christian came here when he was 5. He earned DACA status in 2012. After a public outcry, ICE released him.
• ICE deported 39-year-old Jorge Garcia. He came here when he was 10 years old. Just too old to qualify for DACA. He didn’t even know he was undocumented until he started applying for jobs and college .He has no criminal record. In Mexico now, he feels like a foreigner.