Damian Zermeño, a 15‑year‑old Los Angeles resident, felt a sudden shift when he returned home from school to find his father absent and his aunt sobbing at the dining table.
His father, who had been a single caregiver for Damian since infancy, had been deported to Mexico after a routine immigration check‑in, despite holding deferred action that allowed him to work in the United States.
The separation left Damian, a 10th‑grade student who had never driven and who had limited cooking skills, to navigate adolescence alone, with his father’s presence reduced to a two‑dimensional image on his phone.
“I thought it wasn’t true,” Damian said. “I just went to my room. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t even want to eat.”
Hundreds of thousands of children, many U.S. citizens, have been separated from a parent due to immigration enforcement, with parents detained or deported far from their families without criminal convictions.
These separations have led to a
