U.S. President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy split more than 5,000 children from their families at the Mexico border during his first term.

Border crossings sit at a record low nearly a year into his second administration and a new wave of immigration enforcement is dividing families inside the U.S.

Federal officials and their local law enforcement partners are detaining tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants. Detainees are moved repeatedly, then deported, or held in poor conditions for weeks or months before asking to go home.

The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in November, the highest on record.

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During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system because government computer systems weren’t linked. Now parents inside the United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or decades here.

The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see “unprecedented success” and Mr. Trump’s top border adviser Tom Homan told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead”. Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told The Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with Washington’s new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without knowing if they will see their loved ones again.

For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.

A family divided between Florida and Venezuela

Antonio Laverde left Venezuela for the U.S. in 2022 and crossed the border illegally, then requested asylum. He got a work permit and a driver’s license and worked as an Uber driver in Miami, sharing homes with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives in Venezuela and Florida.

Mr. Laverde’s wife Jakelin Pasedo and their sons followed him from Venezuela to Miami in December 2024. Ms. Pasedo focussed on caring for her sons while her husband earned enough to support the family. Ms. Pasedo and the kids got refugee status but Mr. Laverde, 39, never obtained it and as he left for work one early June morning, he was arrested by federal agents.

Ms. Pasedo says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents hunting for a suspect in their shared housing. In the end, she and her children, then 3 and 5, remember the agents cuffing Mr. Laverde at gunpoint.

“They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him,” Ms. Pasedo said.

Mr. Laverde was held at Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. In September, after three months detention, he asked to return to Venezuela.

Ms. Pasedo, 39, however, has no plans to go back. She fears she could be arrested or kidnapped for criticising the socialist government and belonging to the political opposition.

She works at cleaning offices and, despite all the obstacles, hopes to reunify with her husband someday in the U.S.

They followed the law..

Ms. Yaoska’s husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, a country tight in the grasp of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

She remembers her husband getting death threats and being beaten by police when he refused to participate in a pro-government march. She spoke on condition of anonymity, and requested the same for her husband to protect him from the Nicaraguan government.

The couple fled Nicaragua for the U.S. with their 10-year-old son in 2022, crossing the border and getting immigration parole. Settling down in Miami, they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has U.S. citizenship. Ms. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with their third child.

In late August, Ms. Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Her family accompanied her. Her husband, 35, was detained and failed his credible fear interview, according to a court document.

Ms. Yaoska was released under 24-hour supervision by a GPS (Global Positioning System) watch that she cannot remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after three months at the Krome Detention Center, the United States’ oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse.

She now shares family news with her husband by phone. “The children are struggling without their father,” she said.

“It’s so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Ms. Yaoska said, her voice trembling. “They don’t want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night asking for him,” she said.

“I’m afraid in Nicaragua. But I’m scared here too,” Ms. Yaoska said her work authorisation is valid until 2028 but the future is frightening and uncertain.

“I’ve applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me”, Ms. Yaoska added.

He was detained by local police, then deported..

Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. Working in construction, he started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, a fellow undocumented Guatemalan migrant. The arrival of their son brought them joy.

“He was so happy with the baby — he loved him,” said Amavilia. “He told me he was going to see him grow up and walk.”

But within a few days, Mr. Edgar was detained on a 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, the small agricultural city where he lived in South Florida.

She and her husband declined to provide their last names because they are worried about repercussion from U.S. immigration officials.

Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Mr. Edgar, who declined to be interviewed, was turned over to immigration officials and moved to Krome.

“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I can’t go.” Mr. Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.

After Mr. Edgar’s detention, Amavilia couldn’t pay the $950 rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three months, she received donations from immigration advocates.

Today, breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook lunches she sells for $10 each.

She walks with her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door to door with her two children.

Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any type of legal status. She said her daughter grows anxious around police. She urges her to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.

“I’m afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God,” she said. “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”

New Delhi:

US President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship for children of temporary visa holders was a bolt from the blue for immigrants, especially Indians, in America. Although on hold for now after a legal challenge, the policy has left thousands of Indians, expecting to be parents shortly, in limbo.

For Indian professionals on H-1B visas, the impact is huge. Many assumed their US-born children would automatically get citizenship, but the order now threatens to upend those expectations.

“This impacts us directly,” said Akshay Pise, an Indian engineer in San Jose, California, whose wife, Neha Satpute, is due this month. “If the order takes effect, we don’t know what comes next – it’s uncharted territory,” he told BBC.

With their due date approaching, the couple briefly considered inducing labour early but decided against it. “I want the natural process to take its course,” said Ms Satpute. Mr Pise added, “My priority is safe delivery and my wife’s health. Citizenship comes second.”

The panic has led to reports of parents going for early C-sections to secure their child’s US citizenship. But Satheesh Kathula, president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), advised against it. “In a country with strict medical laws, I strongly advise against preterm C-sections just for citizenship,” he said.

San Jose resident Priyanshi Jajoo, expecting in April, told BBC, “Do we need to contact the Indian consulate for a passport? What visa applies? There’s no clear information.”

New York-based immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta said, “US law has no provision for granting non-immigrant status to a person born here.” Without birthright citizenship, children of H-1B holders could face legal uncertainty.

Ms Satpute said the uncertainty is stressful. “Pregnancy is stressful enough, but we thought after a decade here it would get easier – then this happens on top of everything.” Her husband said they were legal, tax-paying immigrants, and the baby deserved US citizenship. 

“It’s been the law, right?” he said.

Indians, the second-largest immigrant group in the US, would be among the most affected by the order. Over five million hold non-immigrant visas, and under the new rule, their US-born children would no longer receive citizenship.

“Indians face the longest green card backlog of any nationality,” said immigration policy analyst Sneha Puri. Current laws limit green cards to 7 per cent per country, and with Indians receiving 72 per cent of H-1B visas each year, the backlog has grown to 1.1 million.

Cato Institute’s immigration director, David Bier, warned, “New Indian applicants face a lifetime wait, with 4 lakh likely to die before getting a green card.”

The order also affects undocumented immigrants, ending birthright citizenship for their US-born children, who could previously sponsor their parents for a green card at 21.

Estimates on undocumented Indians vary – Pew Research says 7.25 lakh, while the Migration Policy Institute estimates 3.75 lakh.

For Indians on H-1B or O visas, the biggest concern is their children’s future. Visa holders must leave the US for visa stamping, often facing delays. Many worry their kids will face the same struggles.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had reason to rejoice when President Joe Biden unveiled a highly expansive plan to extend legal status to spouses of U.S. citizens but, inevitably, some were left out.

Claudia Zúniga, 35, married in 2017, or 10 years after her husband came to the United States. He moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after they wed, knowing that, by law, he had to live outside the country for years to gain legal status. “Our lives took a 180-degree turn,” she said.

Mr. Biden announced that his administration will, in coming months, allow U.S. citizens’ spouses without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship without having to first depart the country for up to 10 years. About 500,000 immigrants may benefit, according to senior administration officials.

To qualify, an immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years and be married to a U.S. citizen, both as of Monday. Ms. Zúniga’s husband is ineligible because he wasn’t in the United States.

“Imagine, it would be a dream come true,” said Ms. Zúniga, who works part time in her father’s transportation business in Houston. “My husband could be with us. We could focus on the well-being of our children.”

Every immigration benefit — even those as sweeping as Mr. Biden’s election-year offer — has a cutoff date and other eligibility requirements. In September, the Democratic president expanded temporary status for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans who were living in the United States on July 31, 2023. Those who had arrived a day later were out of luck.

The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded from deportation hundreds of thousands of people who came to the United States as young children and is popularly known as DACA, required applicants be in the United States on June 15, 2012, and continuously for the previous five years.

About 1.1 million spouses who are in the country illegally are married to U.S. citizens, according to advocacy group FWD.us., meaning hundreds of thousands won’t qualify because they were in the United States for less than 10 years.

Immigration advocates were generally thrilled with the scope of Tuesday’s announcement, just as Mr. Biden’s critics called it a horribly misguided giveaway.

Angelica Martinez, 36, wiped away tears as she sat next to her children, ages 14 and 6, and watched Mr. Biden’s announcement at the Houston office of FIEL, an immigrant advocacy group. A U.S. citizen since 2013, she described a flood of emotions, including regret that her husband couldn’t travel to Mexico when his mother died five years ago.

“Sadness, joy all at the same time,” said Ms. Martinez, whose husband arrived in Houston 18 years ago.

Brenda Valle of Los Angeles, whose husband has been a U.S. citizen since 2001 and, like her, was born in Mexico, renews her DACA permit every two years. “We can start planning more long-term, for the future, instead of what we can do for the next two years,” she said.

Magdalena Gutiérrez of Chicago, who has been married to a U.S. citizen for 22 years and has three daughters who are U.S. citizens, said she had “a little more hope” after Mr. Biden’s announcement. Ms. Gutiérrez, 43, is eager to travel more across the United States without fearing an encounter with law enforcement that could lead to her being deported.

Allyson Batista, a retired Philadelphia teacher and U.S. citizen, who married her Brazilian husband 20 years ago, recalled being told by lawyer that he could leave the country for 10 years or “remain in the shadows and wait for a change in the law.”

“Initially, when we got married, I was naive and thought, ‘OK, but I’m American. This isn’t going to be a problem. We’re going to fix this,’” Ms. Batista said. “I learned very early on that we were facing a pretty dire circumstance and that there would be no way for us to move forward in an immigration process successfully.”

The couple raised three children who are pursuing higher education. Batista is waiting for the details of how her husband can apply for a green card.

“I’m hopeful,” Ms. Batista said. “The next 60 days will really tell. But, obviously more than thrilled because every step forward is a step towards a final resolution for all kinds of immigrant families.”

About 50,000 noncitizen children with parents who are married to a U.S. citizen could also potentially qualify, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Biden also announced new regulations that will allow some DACA beneficiaries and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for long-established work visas.