Some individuals in the story asked WUSF not to use their full name out of fear of being targeted for their immigration status.
Since last October, Perla Velasquez has been raising her two youngest children alone.
Her three-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son wonder where their dad is, and why their mom is working so much when she used to be able to stay at home with them.
Velasquez said she finds work through friends and by word-of-mouth — mainly landscaping and construction jobs, where three-year-old Carlita can sit off to the side and play with her toys.
Sometimes her friends will give her old furniture or landscaping equipment that she can sell online. Old clothes and household items she no longer needs, she sells as well. Every dollar counts, Velasquez said.
"I never thought I was going to be in this situation. It takes so much from me, asking for help, because I'm not used to doing that, you know?" said Velasquez.
For the last ten years, Velasquez's partner, Carlos, was the main breadwinner. He worked as a welder, repairing and building anything from homes to heavy machinery up and down the state.
While Velasquez is a U.S. citizen, Carlos didn't have legal status. And, though they never married, they lived as a family, Velasquez said.
He cared for Carlita, his biological daughter, and loved Velasquez's son, Ociel, like his own. Ociel, who is autistic and nonverbal, showed his affection toward Carlos through hugs and kisses on the cheek, Velasquez said.
One early morning last October, Carlos was on his way to a job in Sarasota when he fell asleep at a stop sign. Velasquez said long hours at work and his diabetes symptoms left him more tired than usual. Sheriff's deputies were called and they detained Carlos for not having a driver's license.
People without legal status can't get a license in Florida, which makes driving risky for undocumented immigrants. A traffic stop can lead to their deportation.
Carlos was transferred to ICE custody and moved to a detention center in Louisiana. Velasquez hired attorneys to fight the traffic infraction and Carlos's immigration case for about $8,000.
They were hopeful that, without a criminal history, Carlos would be able to get out on bond while fighting deportation.
Velasquez said she had a plan: she would work full-time while Carlos stayed at home, taking care of the kids.
"We were going to get through it together," said Velasquez, "I would do what it would take."
But Carlos's bond was denied, and he was deported to Guatemala in March.
Months later, Velasquez is still making biweekly payments to the lawyers.
She holds back tears when she says, "I don't regret anything that I've tried to do for him to be able to stay here."
She worries mainly about how his absence is affecting the children. Her son, who is normally quiet, is having more outbursts, Velasquez said.
Carlita will sometimes ask where her father is in Spanish. Although she can see him through video calls she says, "papi no esta."
"Dad isn't here."
Detentions of parents rise
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, multiple organizations estimate the number of parents being detained have reached a new high.
A ProPublica analysis of government data obtained through FOIA requests found the parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children were detained in the first seven months of Trump's second term. The report says that's double the number of arrests compared with the Biden administration.
Experts and researchers say government data is likely an undercount of the number of family separations, The Guardian reports. Immigration officials might not ask every individual if they have children, and parents may choose not to disclose that information out of fear.
The Brookings Institution, which uses a different method, arrived at a higher number. Using large-scale household survey data and demographic characteristics of detainees, Brookings estimates around 145,000 U.S. citizen children have been separated from a parent through detention between January 20, 2025 and April 9, 2026.
Rhonda Fleischer, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, said the lack of government data is "very problematic."
"[It] makes it extremely difficult to fully understand the scale and the nature of the child-family separation crisis," said Fleischer.
Children in immigrant households, including mixed-status families, already disproportionately experience material hardship, said Fleischer. When a parent is separated, issues with food insecurity and mental health worsen.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, unauthorized immigrants are more likely to live below the federal poverty level (28%) than native-born residents (17%), even though they are employed at a higher rate.
Fighting detention and deportation can send an already desperate family into debt.
Legal fees can vary widely from case to case. Jose Manuel Godinez Samperio, an immigration attorney based in Manatee County, said a removal defense generally costs thousands of dollars.
If someone is offered bond, that's an additional cost that can range anywhere between $1,500 to tens of thousands of dollars, Godinez Samperio said.
Garcia, a mother of three, has been struggling to get by ever since a Manatee County sheriff's deputy arrested her husband on a DUI charge last October and transferred him to ICE.
He's being held at a detention center in California.
Since his arrest, Garcia said she's only taken only one day off for an immigration appointment.
Garcia works as a cleaner and as staff at a party venue, setting up and taking down decorations. She's applying for a T visa — a form of relief for trafficking victims — for both her and her husband. It costs about $15,000.
She said, when she was 16, "coyotes" smuggled her into the U.S. Afterwards, they wouldn't let her leave for years. It was kidnapping, Garcia said.
As for her husband, she said he faced labor abuse when he was a migrant farmworker on an H-2A visa, which he eventually overstayed.
Most of the money she earns goes towards legal fees or to her husband's account at the detention center, so he can buy food and call home. She feeds her kids with what's left.
"Es muy difícil porque fue el cumpleaños… de Navidad después del cumpleaños de mi niña, mi cumpleaños, el cumpleaños del bebé, realmente todo días festivos para mí no existen."
It's difficult because birthdays will pass — after Christmas, it was my daughter's birthday, my birthday and the baby's birthday. But for me, these holidays don't really exist.
Daniela Arcadia is the co-director of El Pueblo Unido Tampa Bay, an immigrant advocacy non-profit. She said donations from community members and groups like hers are often the only lifeline for these families.
She said El Pueblo Unido is helping about 60 families across the Tampa Bay region by providing food and home essentials, like diapers and formula for parents with babies. They also help pay for utility bills or medication when families need it. Arcadia said she asks for verification that a family member has been detained or if they're behind on bills.
"I understand that there are food banks, there's other places, but they don't always have what you need," said Arcadia.
El Pueblo Unido has built trust within the community. Arcadia said she's fought for immigrant rights since she was a teenager.
"It's still a fight, but it's never been this bad," Arcadia said. "It's never been like this before, this is the heaviest that it's ever felt."
At the Reyes' home in Sarasota, a statuette of Our Lady of Guadalupe sits atop a Catholic altar draped with flowers. It's where Reyes and her children will sometimes pray for their father to come home.
Reyes and her husband are both undocumented. Last June, her husband was detained while on his way to a construction job in southwest Florida. The Highway Patrol stopped his car because of a plastic cover that made it hard to see his license plate, said Reyes.
Court records show he was charged with the unlawful alteration of the vehicle tag/registration and for driving without a license. He was transferred into ICE custody.
Reyes, who was a stay-at-home mom for her eight- and twelve-year-old before the arrest, started taking up baby-sitting gigs for neighborhood kids and selling home-made food to make up for the lost income, as well as pay for her husband's attorney.
The legal fees have totaled about $13,000 so far.
Last year, her family was almost evicted from their home before relatives helped pay for $5,000 in back rent.
Sitting in her living room one afternoon in June, Reyes takes a deep breath before saying, "ha sido difícil."
It's been hard.
"Es que no solamente es lo económico, y el no tener… ese apoyo de tu pareja."
But it's not just the finances, it's also about not having the emotional support from your partner.
The hardest part, though Reyes said, is seeing her children in pain.
"Es difícil mirar a tu hijo, que agarre la foto y que llore y que diga 'extraño mi papa.'"
It's hard to look at your child, watch him grab the photo, cry, and say, "I miss my dad."
In July, an immigration judge granted Reyes's husband bond for about $1,500.
A non-profit group outside of the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, CA, where he was detained, pitched in. Additional funds from El Pueblo Unido paid for the plane ticket home.
Reyes's husband arrived in Sarasota in the middle of the night. And, for the first time in a year, he hugged his kids.
"Mis hijos están que no se quieren despegar ni para dormir. Se quieren despegar de mi esposo. Son son muchas emociones encontradas porque hay momentos en los que no se la creen todavía," said Reyes.
My children don't want to let go of my husband—not even to sleep. There are so many mixed emotions, because there are moments when they still can't quite believe it.
Reyes said, they're feeling relief.
But it's mixed with uncertainty, as they continue to fight his deportation case.
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