Two Detentions: One Family’s Fight to Stay Afloat
It was Monday morning. Like any other day, Ignacio stepped out of his home in Redwood City to walk his family’s dog.
As he left home, he noticed a few cars on his street that he had not seen before. They were big, each one lined up behind the other. He registered them but kept moving. “Who could they be here for?” he thought.
Ignacio felt uneasy during the walk and decided to make his way back home shortly after leaving. Before he could make it back to his house, the vehicles he had seen earlier pulled up next to him. Ten ICE agents. Not one or two. Ten got out of the vehicles and surrounded him.
When the agents encroached on him, Ignacio did not run or resist. “If I resist or get angry, they’ll treat me worse,” he thought.
Ignacio managed to call a cousin to take the dog and got into one of the unmarked vehicles he noticed earlier that morning.
Back at home, Maria waited for him, unaware of what had happened. In the days that followed, she struggled to reach her husband. She found herself navigating a system that offered few answers and was unpredictable.
Building a Life
Maria has lived in the Bay Area for 23 years. She left Mexico City at 34, shortly after Ignacio, who came ahead to find work. They left three children behind, promising to bring them within a year of their move. They kept that promise.
For most of her 23 years in the Bay Area, Maria has cleaned houses. First to survive, then to bring her kids over, then to keep them moving forward.
Maria is now in her 50s. Decades of physically demanding work have taken a toll on her body. Arthritis, in particular, has made repetitive movements painful, forcing Maria to scale back her housecleaning work. At the same time, Ignacio faces his own battle. With his sixties on the horizon, a lifetime of grueling construction work has caught up to him. The physical demands of the job have forced him to slow down at the same time as Maria.
Amid rising living costs and reduced work hours, Maria and Ignacio struggled to make ends meet. To get by, they cut back wherever they could and limited spending to necessities.
Then the ICE raids began.
The Day ICE Came
For months, Maria and Ignacio lived with a constant sense of fear. They worried that a routine trip to the grocery store or a drive to work could upend their lives. As uncertainty grew, they began to withdraw. They limited outings, stopped seeing friends and family as often, and rarely traveled far from home unless it was necessary. They spent most of their time outside of work at home with their son, Hector.
Hector arrived in the United States as a child. When the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program launched over a decade ago, he was eligible to apply. Through DACA, Hector was able to work, attend school, and build a future with greater peace of mind. Over time, as his parents scaled back their work due to health concerns, Hector became the family’s primary provider. Amid growing immigration enforcement, he served as a source of stability and reassurance for his parents.
But Hector could not protect his father when ICE came.
In a matter of minutes, Ignacio was gone from the neighborhood he had called home for decades. ICE did not explain why he was being detained, where he was being taken, or what Maria and Hector should do next.
The hours that followed Ignacio’s detention were a blur of frantic phone calls and unanswered questions. Maria immediately began reaching out to friends, family members, and legal service providers, desperate for information and support. But finding help was difficult. She had no idea where Ignacio was being held and was unable to reach him for days.
A Warning From Inside
Five days after ICE detained her husband, Maria was finally able to reach him by phone. The first thing Ignacio told her was a warning. When ICE detained him, agents had shown him a photo of their son, Hector. They had been looking for Hector but had encountered Ignacio instead.
Ignacio pleaded with Maria to keep Hector safe and to stay home as much as possible. He feared ICE would return to their neighborhood in search of their son and detain him. Maria promised she would do everything she could to protect him, but she knew there were limits to what she could control.
Now, Maria was carrying not only the anguish of her husband’s sudden detention, but also the fear that the same thing could happen to her son. Despite the uncertainty, she sprang into action. She contacted friends, family members, community organizations, and the Bay Area Rapid Response Network, determined to find legal support for Ignacio.
Lost in the System
Securing legal representation for Ignacio felt nearly impossible. He was first held at a local detention facility near Redwood City, then transferred to San Francisco. Just a few days later, he was moved again, this time to Hawaii.
Each transfer made it more difficult for Maria to understand what legal process her husband was facing and what support he needed. Ignacio was rarely given advance notice of where he would be sent next; often, he learned about a transfer only as it was happening.
The system was unpredictable and moved faster than Maria could keep up with. The lawyers Maria contacted quoted her thousands of dollars in fees for legal services. One quoted $25,000 total — but said he needed $3,000 to $4,000 upfront just to locate her husband and determine where he was being held. Another quoted $50,000 to pursue the case. No guarantees either way.
“Where am I going to get that kind of money?” she kept asking herself.
Ignacio’s repeated transfers created jurisdictional complications that were difficult to navigate. As a result, the nonprofit attorneys who had initially offered to take on his case were no longer able to represent him.
With each dead end, Maria felt increasingly overwhelmed. But she refused to give up hope, praying every day and holding on to the belief that Ignacio would return home.
A Brief Reunion
When Ignacio was transferred to Hawaii, he was assigned a court-appointed attorney who represented him at a hearing. He told the truth about his case: how he had entered the United States on a visa, how long he had lived in the country, and the life he had built alongside his wife and children.
The judge set bond at $7,000. Knowing that detention and bond conditions could change quickly, Maria and Hector acted fast. Ignacio’s brother lent them the money, and they paid the bond immediately.
At last, Ignacio was released and able to make his way home to Redwood City. But only a few weeks after Ignacio’s return home, ICE came back. This time, for Hector.
A Second Detention
ICE took Hector to a detention center in Bakersfield, arguing that his DACA status was no longer valid. There, he remained in detention for four months.
Hector’s detention was devastating for Maria and Ignacio. Their lives had only recently been upended by Ignacio’s detention, and now they were facing a similar nightmare once again. This time, however, ICE had taken the family’s primary provider.
Without Hector, Maria and Ignacio struggled to cover necessary living expenses. Hector contributed roughly 75% of the household’s income, making it possible for the family to pay rent, buy groceries, and stay afloat. With their own health issues limiting their ability to work, Maria and Ignacio had little opportunity to make up for the lost income. And after borrowing $7,000 from Ignacio’s brother, turning to family for additional financial support was no longer a realistic option.
On the day ICE detained Hector, he called his mother from custody. Overwhelmed with guilt, he apologized repeatedly. Hector blamed himself for leaving his parents without a provider and without savings to fall back on. Maria did her best to reassure him, but she was heartbroken and frightened herself. Having only recently navigated Ignacio’s detention, she now faced the prospect of going through the ordeal all over again.
Finding ALMA
After Ignacio’s detention, Maria started attending events hosted by Faith in Action. These events brought together families navigating the aftermath of the detention and deportation of loved ones. Through these gatherings, Maria heard about ALMA.
Maria was initially skeptical of the program. She had never received support like this and didn’t know anyone who had. At the time, she was overwhelmed by everything happening in her life and unsure she had the capacity to navigate a lengthy application process. But hearing about the program from someone she trusted—someone who also offered to help her apply—gave her the confidence to take the next step.
To Maria’s surprise, the application process was much simpler than she had expected. The intake interview with MAF’s team felt less like an assessment and more like a conversation with a friend. Rather than feeling scrutinized, Maria felt supported and encouraged throughout the call.
“She gave me so much encouragement,” Maria said, reflecting on her conversation with MAF’s program staff.
What the Support Made Possible
When ICE detained Hector, one of the biggest financial concerns that kept Maria up at night was rent. Maria and Ignacio could not afford it even when combining their incomes. Staying with family was not an option; they were struggling to stay afloat as well. Keeping a roof over their heads was no longer guaranteed without Hector’s income.
As the bills piled up and the uncertainty stretched on, Maria received a call. The ALMA grant she applied for was on the way. When they received it, paying rent was their first priority.
“When someone helps with rent, you can finally think about what comes next,” Maria said.
Once Maria and Ignacio covered the rent, they finally had the breathing room to focus on their next steps. Together, they could begin planning how they would make ends meet in the months ahead and how they could continue supporting their son.
“[ALMA] is such a wonderful program,” Maria said. “I am so grateful.”
Why ALMA Matters Now
Maria’s story is pervasive. In neighborhoods across the country, families who have lived here for decades, working, raising children, paying rent, and building community, are finding that none of it shields them from immigration enforcement actions that upend their lives without warning.
Deportation raids and heightened immigration enforcement cause not only emotional upheaval but also immediate financial instability. Last year, a MAF survey of immigrant families laid bare this reality: over 80% of immigrant families reported a sudden loss of income as heightened enforcement disrupted their ability to work. This economic shockwave immediately impacts everyday life, with 75% of families struggling to buy groceries and 82% struggling to pay their rent or mortgages.
When a loved one is detained or a parent can no longer work due to fear, families are left scrambling to pay the bills and navigate an uncertain future. In those moments, ALMA provides up to $3,000 in unrestricted financial support. These funds allow families to focus on their next steps without the immediate fear of losing their housing or being unable to purchase groceries.
Support Families Like Maria’s
Months after her husband’s and son’s detentions, Maria’s family is still rebuilding. Ignacio is navigating his immigration case. Hector is living in Mexico following his deportation. Meanwhile, Maria continues to carry the emotional and financial weight of their separation. The stress has taken a toll on her health, and the debt from legal expenses remains a burden on the family.
Yet despite everything, Maria has not lost hope. She continues to remind herself, “This is temporary. This will pass.” Those words, along with her faith and the support of her community, give her the strength to keep moving forward and the hope that better days lie ahead.
When asked what she would say to other families going through something similar, she didn’t hesitate:
“Don’t give up. Look for this program. They support you both emotionally and financially.”
By supporting ALMA, you can stand alongside families like Maria’s as they rebuild. Your support helps ensure that families facing detention and deportation have access to flexible financial assistance and trusted community support when they need it most. Not because these families lack strength or determination, but because no one should have to face a crisis alone..