What is going on? Where are they taking my dad?

Those were thoughts that should not have been in a child’s mind.

I was 4 years old in 2010 when I first understood that my life was going to be harder than other children’s lives. It started with my father being deported. Two men rushed out of a red pickup truck. The passenger-side window was cracked, like my heart was about to be.

My father was treated like a criminal. You would have thought he was selling drugs by the way they forced him onto the hood of the car. Both men looked like Greasers from the book “The Outsiders.”

Trembling hands suddenly covered my eyes. My mother did not say a word.

What’s happening?

My father returned after only a few months. Six years passed, and by 2016, I was 10 years old. Donald Trump was elected president. He promised deportations, and fear returned with every step we took.

I was still young. I didn’t understand why this random man on television wanted my parents gone. It was terrifying to know that at any moment my family could be targeted.

I am almost 19 years old now, and there are six of us living in our small house. Only two of us are U.S. citizens.

All it took was one week for the fear to start again. Trump is now president again.

“Vamos a pasar a comprar comida. ¿Crees que hay patrullas?” my mother asked me Jan. 28.

Even without looking at her, I noticed a small tremble in her voice.

My mother worked hard for a new life in the United States. When I look into her brown eyes, the same as mine, all I see is fear.

“No se,” I told her with all sincerity, scoping out the parking lot of the grocery store.

I am a U.S. citizen. I have a valid state ID, license and passport. I should have no reason to be worried. Even so, it terrifies me that my family could get taken away from me again.

“¿Porque no te vajas y te espero en el carro?” my mother asked with worry in her voice.

She started to give me a list of groceries to pick up when she suddenly decided to head in with me by her side.

White faces passed by our brown ones. The smell of fresh produce met us as we walked into the store. Greens and reds passed our eyes as we headed deeper into the dairy aisle.

The store was small, but as the minutes passed, it felt as if the store itself was trapping us there.

After an hour, we left, relieved that we had made it back to the car together.

This is what people don’t always understand. Fear does not have to look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes it looks like a mother asking her daughter whether there are patrol cars near the grocery store.

Sometimes it looks like a family dinner with less laughter.

Sometimes it looks like checking your phone again and again because one message could change everything.

When I imagine detention centers, I imagine huge human cages. Brown faces with scared, sad and angry expressions. Crowded spaces with little to no air. Children without their parents. Families removed from one another. Immigrants treated like filthy pieces of garbage.

Isn’t this supposed to be the best country? America calls itself the land of the free, but how free is it when families live afraid to leave their homes?

My brown skin clashes with the skin of many of my peers. I stick out like a sore thumb.

Feb. 5, 2006, was the day I was born. I will admit that many times in my life I have wished to be lighter, with pale skin, blue eyes, beautiful blond hair and no worries about my family being taken.

But when I look in the mirror, all that stares back at me is a cactus face, dirty brown eyes, black hair and the fear that even one wrong stare could cause my family’s disappearance.

People say I look like my mother. Short black hair. Dark brown eyes that glow in the light. Beautiful caramel skin.

I am her, back when she was worry-free and full of hope that she would have a better life here. A full face from being well-fed. Wrinkles from all the expressions she has made in her life. When seeing a photo of us together, it is obvious that I am her copy.

To want to change myself is to want to change what she gave me. Why would I want that?

It hurts knowing that I have wanted to change myself so many times. But I love my mother, and I love being her copy. How else will people know she was the one to support me?

I just wish she wasn’t so afraid of the real world now that it feels like it is collapsing right in front of us.

“¿Has visto algo hoy?” my mother asked as soon as she got home.

Not even a “How was school?”

We didn’t need context to know what she was talking about. It was already in our minds.

“I saw a cop,” I responded.

“Yo también,” my sister added.

The two of us are the ones who mainly report to the others what happens outside Carbondale. Family dinners aren’t what they used to be. Laughter and joy are now replaced with silence and serious faces, at least some nights.

It is painful, truly it is, being treated like a criminal. It’s painful to get nasty stares, scoffs and noises of disgust. Not everyone is this way, but the people who treat us that way make it feel like everyone is out to get us.

The cycle started in 2016, but it is now 2025. I thought it began then, but it was really only just the beginning.

If all goes well, this December my mother will be able to apply for citizenship. One of her wishes is to be able to see her family again. I pray that everything will go OK.

It is 2026 now. What was of 2025 was just a teaser. This is the real beginning.

I cannot think straight anymore. Only worry fills my head. I like to keep up appearances. I smile at the right time and laugh when it’s needed. But in reality, I feel like I’m drowning in an ocean only I can see and feel.

All I do is talk about what is happening around me, but I never actually do anything. I feel useless. When I try to do something, it feels like it doesn’t matter.

I don’t want to say I give up, but most days, that is how life has treated me.

I want to be someone my family can rely on. Someone who will protect them. How am I supposed to do that when I already feel like giving up on myself?

Across the country, people have been hurt during immigration enforcement actions. News reports about Renee Good and Alex Pretti made that fear feel even closer.

Good was a U.S. citizen and a mother. Pretti was a nurse. Federal officials defended the actions of agents involved in those cases, while families, witnesses and others disputed parts of those accounts.

To some people, those stories are just headlines. To families like mine, they feel like warnings.

When someone dies during an immigration operation, people argue over the details. They ask what the person did. They ask whether the agent was justified. They ask who is to blame.

But families are still left grieving. Children still lose parents. Mothers still do not come home. People who were alive one moment are gone the next.

That is the part I cannot stop thinking about.

Reports of denied medical care, abuse, harassment and deaths in detention make that fear worse.

Isn’t this supposed to be the best country?

America is the land of the free, but how free is it?

What has this place come to? I cannot even imagine how cruel, how hate-filled, someone has to be to neglect those in need of medical care. They are scared, hurt and angry, but those in power don’t seem to care.

When I look in the mirror, I don’t even see myself anymore. I see a family that is being held together by love and care.

I don’t want to lose the only people I care about to a man who doesn’t care about us. I want to continue my education without the fear of my family being caught by agents, beaten, harassed or even killed.

My brown skin is what they see, but they don’t see me.

They don’t see my family.

They don’t see what my parents sacrificed.

They say Trump is for the children, but his policies have harmed children too. He says he will bring affordability back, then contradicts himself. He says he is only going after criminals, but families like mine know the fear does not stop there.

And people are defending this?

I don’t understand how people can support someone who doesn’t support families like mine.

My head hurts. I still can’t think straight. I cry out every night, hoping something will pull me out of the river I feel trapped in.

What is going to happen to us, to my family, to my dad?

It was the beginning of March 2026. We were laughing and smiling. We were as happy as we could be, despite the economy and everything happening around us.

It was a nice, calm morning, March 17. I left for school as I do any other day, though it was different this time. I was happy, talking to a friend about our class project, when I got a call from my cousin.

“¡Hola! ¿Que paso?” is what I said to her, in a joyful tone.

“Acaban de deportar a mi tío. Estamos en la casa, aquí te esperamos.”

The only thing I could muster was a gasping cry.

I ran out of the classroom. Nothing mattered more to me than getting home at that very moment. I didn’t even think about grabbing my things. I left everything behind, my phone, laptop, bag, everything.

It didn’t matter to me.

What mattered was the fact that I might not get a chance to see my father again.

It’s scary. What are we going to do? I can’t sleep. I feel sick to my stomach almost every day.

What did we do to deserve this outcome?

He is no criminal. He built a business here. He built a family. He turned his life around. He found God. He did good in the community.

Out of all people, why him?

Why us?

No se que hacer sin ti, me duele despertarme cada dia sin escuchar tu voz. Ni te podría decir, ‘Adiós’, ese día. Me duele más porque…¿Qué tal si crees que no te estamos ayudando? Creo que ya estamos más calmados, pero no significa que estamos en confianza para poder salir de la casa.

Every day feels like a terrible trip that I can’t seem to get sober from. I am worrying my mom, and I can’t do that anymore. It hurts to see her that way, and I know it hurts her to see us this way too.

My sister carries the workload that my father left behind. My brother takes my father’s place as the new face of the family business. My mom and cousin work hard every day of the week.

And me?

I stay in school and continue to work when I can.

Everyone is doing so much for the family, and then there is me. I haven’t worked in about two weeks. I’m falling behind in my classes. I feel utterly useless, like I’m a huge failure to my family, to my dad.

I can’t do anything right. I feel like the only useful thing I have done is stay out of the way.

My sister says it’s better for me to focus on my schoolwork. She’s right. I want to help in any way I can, but when I know I am being a bother, I know that I need to sit back and stay out of the way.

She wants me to focus on school, and I will. Especially if that’s what helps my family clear their minds, then that’s what I will do.

It hurts knowing that I can’t do much to help, but if they want me to just focus on school, then I will try my best to study and stay on track with school and with work.

My early 20s are supposed to be the best years of my life. If this is how they start off, then I don’t want to know what the rest has in store for me in the future.

We need to keep our heads up high. My mother has been telling me that other families have it worse than we do. We at least all have a job we can fall back on. My sister and I have an education that we are working on. In a way, yes, we do have it better than some families.

But that doesn’t mean the pain of it all is not real.

Those affected by this situation all share the pain of missing a loved one who was taken. Not everyone is going to understand our worry, our pain or our love for our family. That’s OK. We do not expect people to feel the way we feel.

We just want people to understand that this is becoming more and more real, day by day.

But there is light at the end of every tunnel, and that tunnel might feel long.

We will make it there.

Es por mis padres que estoy aquí, es por sus sacrificios que puedo tener una vida mejor. Una vida llena de oportunidades. Sin sus apoyos no creo que estará estudiando. Sus sacrificios, la vergüenza de tener que aprender un lenguaje nuevo, ser trabajos que los demás no quisieron hacer, todo para que sus hijos tengan una vida más fácil.

Aunque peleamos, que les hago enojar, yo estoy tan orgullosa de poder llamarlos mis padres. Sin ustedes no podría ser nada, no podría tener la mentalidad para seguir estudiando, para seguir haciendo lo que me hace feliz.

Los amo con todo mi cuerpo, Julissa Perez.