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I run into a former student of mine, outside of school. 鈥淗ow are you, miss?鈥� he asks.

I respond in our native tongue, 鈥淢uy bien, 驴y t煤?鈥�听

We chat briefly about students from our class, and I ask about Camila 鈥� a silly ninth grader who always brightened our days. 

鈥淗ay 鈥� la deportaron, miss,鈥� he whispers. In that moment, I鈥檓 astonished but not surprised. This has become a familiar reality for many newcomer students.

These days, as an English language development teacher to newcomers in Santa Maria, California, I often hear my high school students speaking casually about going back to their native countries. Voluntary and forceful deportations have become commonplace over the last year and a half. The has doubled since President Donald Trump鈥檚 second term began, and the number of immigrants in detention facilities is at an all-time high. 

But families being broken apart and people being uprooted from the homes they鈥檝e built 鈥� in many cases, the only homes they know 鈥� is not OK or normal. We as a society cannot accept this. It鈥檚 an outrage. It鈥檚 also painful and traumatizing for the families experiencing it. And I know that because I鈥檝e experienced it myself. 

Ten years ago, on a Monday morning, I received a text from my older sister. 鈥淢om is going back to Mexico,鈥� it read. I was at Starbucks, reading my book, when I stared at my phone in disbelief. But something in her text made me believe that this news was real. As I headed home that day, 鈥淭e Vas Amor鈥� by El Coyote y Su Banda Tierra Santa played in my white Honda Accord. El Coyote sang, 鈥淭e vas amor, tal vez mis ojos no te vuelvan a mirar.鈥� You are leaving love, perhaps my eyes will never see you again. 

I cried at the prospect of losing my mother to the border. Given that she was undocumented, I knew Mami would not be able to come back.

The hours and days after were a blur. When I got home, Mami revealed she鈥檇 be going back to Mexico to care for my grandfather before he passed. Because she needed to leave so urgently, Papi would have to join her later. My parents owned an agricultural business that he needed to tend to. When they鈥檇 first immigrated to the U.S., they鈥檇 picked strawberries; eventually they鈥檇 begun cultivating fruit and hiring workers of their own. My parents had found the American dream they鈥檇 longed for: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness here.

Mami began getting her affairs in order that same day. I don鈥檛 remember asking her to stay. I was 23 years old, a recent graduate from UCLA and technically an adult at the time. I was also a U.S. citizen. I felt it selfish to ask my mother to choose between her dying father and her grown daughter, so I just processed the news and supported her decision. 

The days after involved buying flights, speaking to a lawyer, putting the house 鈥� which they had just purchased and paid off 鈥� in my name, and changing bank accounts to include me as their fiduciary representative. I did all this while my heart ached at the thought of losing my mother to a border that would not welcome her back. 

By Friday night, just four days after Mami had made the decision to go back to Mexico, we were on our way to Los Angeles International Airport, where she said goodbye to her husband and boarded a plane to Oaxaca. 

Ten months later, once strawberry season had concluded, Papi was on his way to join her. Before he went through airport security, I gave my father a hug. This time, both my parents were leaving this country, leaving home.

It鈥檚 2026 now, almost 10 years since I lost my parents to self-deportation. It鈥檚 a shame that things have only gotten worse for immigrant families like mine. It seems like every day we see social media posts about families getting separated from their loved ones and GoFundMe pages asking for help with legal expenses for family members who were deported. Each day, another family is broken by a border and laws that don鈥檛 allow them to stay together. 

And yet we, as a society, have accepted this new norm. Why? Why have we tolerated the idea that a father or mother can just be ripped apart from their child? Each day I walk into my classroom, overjoyed by the presence of my students, and think of the ache they must feel with this current administration. I lost my parents to the border at the age of 23; here they are, experiencing it as 15-year-olds. I understand that my students carry not only their backpacks, pencils and notebooks, but also the weight of potentially losing their loved ones. 

They also carry something else: resilience. Strength comes from trials and tribulations. Despite what they鈥檙e experiencing, my students are brilliant and thriving. I remind them of this each day. 

I offer a space of love and learning, a space where they know they are accepted and valued, no matter what else is going on in our country. In my classroom, they know they belong, and they know that while we鈥檙e working together to learn English, their native tongues are still welcome.

Despite what I can offer my students in my classroom, we as a society need to do better for them. What is going on in our country is not normal and should not be reduced to normalcy just because it鈥檚 happening. It should not happen at all. My students deserve to live and learn in a place where their only worry might be whether they studied enough for the science test or whether they made the baseball team, not whether their life will be uprooted by the presence of ICE at the local grocery store. 

For now, I cheer for them when they say, 鈥淗ello, Ms. Gonzalez, how are you?,鈥� demonstrating they are capable of learning a new language. I celebrate them when they get a perfect score on a test they were worried about. For now, I do my best to put a smile on my face and assure them that no matter what, they are always welcome here.

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