Two Fort Worth teenagers, suddenly on their own. For nearly a year, 19-year-old Dulce Zepeda has been raising her 13-year-old sister, Maria, in the months since their parents were arrested by ICE and then deported.
When NBC 5 Investigates first met Dulce and Maria in April, they were living in a Fort Worth apartment complex. Dulce, cooking, driving her sister to middle school, working at a local McDonald’s, and selling her mother’s jewelry, she said, to help pay bills.
“You never know whenever is the last hug that you’re going to have from your parents. You don’t know, you’ll never know how stressful and hard life is without them,” Dulce told NBC 5 Investigates.
The girls are U.S. citizens and legally entitled to remain in the country. But some immigration advocates say their case is a stark example of the precarious situations facing thousands of U.S. citizen children whose parents have been detained during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
U.S. citizen teens left behind when ICE deported their parents
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-citizen-teens-left-ice-deported-parents-rcna592908
11 Comments
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world · 67 pts · 3d
The cruelty is the point. They want to punish the children for having the audacity to be born in the US (which is course makes them legal citizens).
They want to bully them into leaving and following their parents to another country (assuming the parents aren't still rotting in an ICE concentration camp).
We need to do more to help these kids cope in these horrible situations. And of course, we need to do more to prevent these families from being split up in the first place.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 3d
Murica! Fuck, yeah!
JFC, this is so goddamned awful. Of course, if the Miller-Donnie axis of evil were to get their way, they'd deport the kids, too. Because they think birthright citizenship is bad.
ToastedCoconuts@piefed.blahaj.zone · 17 pts · 3d
What I don't understand is where does that stop? How many generations do they go back and decide people don't belong in the US?
village604@adultswim.fan · 30 pts · 3d
Depends on how white you are.
cecilkorik@piefed.ca · 13 pts · 3d
Various combinations of white, wealthy, attractive, and socially connected puts you in a pretty protected class. Enough of those and you'll be in government.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
This is likely the answer. See how we are granting refugee status, almost exclusively, to white South Africans.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/south-africa-white-genocide-afrikaner-refugees-asylum/
clanker_victim_555@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 3d
It doesn't. Fascists will always define a smaller and smaller US to oppose the THEM.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 3d
Right up until most of their supporters’ parents immigrated. 3-4 generations should do it
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 3d
Tribunals, if we get them, are gonna be so satisfying to watch.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 3d
Who’s going to televise them? The people on trial own the media.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
Ugh.
I grew up in Burleson, TX. It's on the outskirts of DFW. Technically, the city borders Ft. Worth but there was a bit of country between there until the last maybe decade or two.
It's definitely small town politics, i.e. red. I'm very not-shocked to hear things went this way. Bummed. But not surprised.