Immigration sweeps leave gaping holes in San Diego families. 'I just want my dad home'

SAN DIEGO — A mother sat with her youngest children in the fifth row of a Logan Heights church for a different kind of Mass.

“If you know someone who has been detained or deported, please raise your hand,” the Rev. Scott Santarosa said to the dozens of parishioners gathered at Our Lady of Guadalupe church on a recent Wednesday night.

She raised her hand. So did many parishioners around her, slowly, sometimes hesitantly.

“Okay, quite a few people,” Santarosa noted. “Now, if you are affected by what is happening in this country with immigration right now, please raise your hand.”

He looked around as hands were held up again.

The special service at the Jesuit parish was held to show solidarity with immigrant communities, months into the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and promises of mass deportations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reiterated that anyone who violates immigration law is subject to arrest and detention, “regardless of their criminal histories.”

Across San Diego County, family members, friends and coworkers have suddenly vanished into immigration custody or been removed across borders. Their absences have left gaping holes in families of mixed immigration status, upended daily routines and prompted inevitable “what if” conversations in case it happens again.

Lupita, the fifth-row parishioner, is grappling with both realities. With her husband deported to Mexico, her anxiety grows around who will care for her five children if she’s next.

“Just as it happened to him, I know it could happen to me,” said Lupita, who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of repercussions. “At any time, anywhere.”

‘You never really think it’s going to happen to you’

Lupita and her husband were out purchasing items for a church gathering in early February when immigration agents swarmed and arrested him in the parking lot, she said.

“It was very shocking,” she said, recalling watching them take him away without explanation.

Within hours, he was deported to Mexico.

Lupita said her husband had a DUI more than 20 years ago. He was fined and took classes at the time, she recalled.

Lupita and her family, including her five children who are U.S. citizens, had discussed the possibility of deportation. However, she said, “You never really think it’s going to happen to you.”

Her husband, who made a living painting houses, regularly took the kids to school in the morning since she worked the early shift at a local tortilleria. Now, it’s up to her 19-year-old son, who works at a fast food restaurant. She recently left her job to spend more time with her kids and now earns money cleaning houses.

The experience has also left her more fearful of going out. She now changes up the times she goes grocery shopping and runs other errands.

Her husband returned to Mexico City, where his family lives, and later opened a small restaurant that serves wings. The family has video calls every day.

Lupita said she is having a difficult conversation with her children, who range in age from 7 to 21. The last thing she wants is for them to live in fear.

If something were to happen to her, she tells them, she would be fine, just as their father is. “We will be together as long as God allows,” she said. “And as long as God allows me to stay, we will make the most of it.”

‘It changes everything’

The idea for the special Mass came to the Rev. Santarosa after one of the parish’s sacristans was deported.

Federal agents grabbed him one morning in mid-July while he was driving to his construction job. He was able to hurriedly call his wife to let her know he had been detained by ICE. Then, a woman grabbed the phone and told her where she could find her husband’s truck with the keys inside.

Stunned and confused, the wife reached out to an attorney. However, her husband, who had previously been deported in 2008, later called to tell her that he was already in Mexico after having agreed to a voluntary departure.

“It changes everything,” the woman said through tears. She asked to be identified only by her first name, Etelvina, for fear of repercussions. “The day they took him away, the house felt sad. It felt almost like when someone dies.”

Her husband had lived in the U.S. for over 20 years. She said that her family is still processing what happened. He was the primary breadwinner, and now the family is struggling to pay rent and bills. She cleans houses for a living but says she doesn’t earn enough to cover basic expenses.

Etelvina is weighing the possibility of returning to Michoacán, Mexico, to be with her husband. But, at the same time, she doesn’t want to leave her two grown children and grandchildren.

‘We’re trying our best’

Deisy Mendoza had been preparing to apply for college, working in the meantime at a local ice cream parlor.

But ever since her parents were detained by ICE one morning in late June, the 21-year-old has become the primary provider and caretaker for her four younger siblings.

Mendoza thinks her father became a target months before the arrest, when ICE agents went to the construction company where he worked and requested documents, apparently as part of an investigation, she said. Two of her father’s coworkers were detained.

Then came the knock on the door of their Logan Heights apartment. A neighbor informed her that her parents had been arrested by ICE. Mendoza believes her mother, a stay-at-home mom, was taken away because she happened to be with her father when the arrest occurred.

They have both been held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center ever since.

Mendoza said her youngest brother constantly talks about how much he misses their parents.

Mendoza still works the late shift at an ice cream shop during the week. She now devotes her mornings to her siblings, who range in age from 8 to 18, all of them U.S. citizens. She makes them breakfast, does chores around the house and takes them to school.

“I feel like I’m very weak, honestly, like, emotionally,” she said. “But we’re trying our best.”

They are currently mostly relying on her salary and family savings to cover rent and other expenses. They have also set up a GoFundMe page. Mendoza said her community rallied around her, including the neighbor who helped connect her with resources such as the Unión del Barrio community patrol line and the American Friends Service Committee.

Her parents, Lucas and Yesenia Mendoza, have lived in the country for more than 20 years, and neither has a criminal record, she said.

“Our parents came to this country with nothing but hope and the determination to build a better life for us. Over the years, they built a home full of love, sacrifice and hard work. In a single moment, and without remorse, that stability was taken away from us,” Mendoza wrote on the GoFundMe page.

The experience is shaping her future plans. Now, she is considering studying to become an immigration lawyer.

She said that a judge had granted bail to her parents, but the government appealed the decision. They are still in detention.

‘You can see his invisible pain’

Victor Varela Avila had no reservations about visiting his son in Japan, where his son serves in the U.S. Air Force. Avila, who lives in Chula Vista, has had a valid green card, allowing him to reside legally in the U.S. for decades, said Avila’s daughter, Carina Mejia.

But as he and his wife were checking in to their connecting return flight in San Francisco in May, federal officers scanned Avila’s ID and held him back, said Mejia. The officers wouldn’t say why — they just told his wife, who is also a green-card holder, that she had to get on the plane by herself.

They took Avila into custody. He and his family later found out the reason: a DUI and a misdemeanor drug possession conviction from 16 years ago, one for which he served 90 days in jail.

Officers detained him in a room at the San Francisco airport with no amenities to be a proper jail. Avila, who is 69 and has back pain, slept on the chairs. After about two weeks detained at the airport, officials brought him to the Golden State Annex immigrant detention center in McFarland, where he has been kept ever since.

Mejia, 41, makes the five-hour drive every other weekend from her home in Chula Vista to visit him. She spent Father’s Day sitting across from him at a table in the prison. It hurts her to see her father walk out every time, wearing an orange jumpsuit.

“He just comes out and you can see his invisible pain,” Mejia said. “He doesn’t belong there.”

Avila has lived in the U.S. since he was 16 years old, when he came to San Diego from San Luis, Mexico, to help his father work picking produce. Avila has always gotten his green card renewed, even since the misdemeanor, his daughter said.

It’s something Mejia never imagined would happen.

“He’s rebuilt his life with compassion and integrity. My dad’s the most caring person. He’s not a threat, and that’s what they’re making him out to be,” Mejia said.

For 16 years, Avila has worked as a legal assistant, financially supporting his wife, who isn’t employed, Mejia said. He has also been caretaker for both his wife and his mother — neither drives, and both have various chronic health conditions.

As the eldest child, that’s all up to Mejia now, all while working her job as a clinical social worker, taking her 15-year-old daughter to softball practices and hunting down records for her father’s ongoing court case. Mejia said she and her 22-year-old daughter help drive Mejia’s mother to doctor appointments and the grocery store.

Avila has a final court date in October that will determine if he can remain in the U.S.

“No family should be torn apart like this. Every day without him takes a toll on all of us,” she said. “I just want my dad home.”