Mark walked across the graduation stage last week in Maryland and retrieved his diploma, a moment his father had prayed for every night while locked in an immigration detention center. But Marco wasn't in the auditorium. He was watching on a livestream from Mexico, unable to be present for what he had called his greatest wish.
The 17-year-old's senior year became a blur of survival after federal agents arrested his father in December at a Home Depot in Maryland. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him for three months before deporting him to El Salvador in March. Marco, who had lived in the United States for nearly 40 years and owned a contracting business, became one of tens of thousands of parents torn from U.S. citizen children by the immigration system.
Mark had been an accomplished student before his world fractured. He took advanced placement classes, maintained close friendships, and had dreams of his own. When his father disappeared into federal custody, those plans felt impossibly distant. "For a lot of this semester, I just didn't want to go to school," Mark said. "Even after I came to terms with what happened to my dad, I never, never ever wanted to be there."
The depression deepened quickly. Mark's grades plummeted. In one math class, he was failing with an "E." He stopped attending advanced placement courses because he couldn't keep up. While his mother worked at Burger King, Mark took on new responsibilities, running errands and buying groceries to minimize the risk that she might be arrested by ICE as well. He heard her crying in her room at night, but she tried to stay strong for him.
Financially, the family unraveled. Marco had earned enough to cover rent, utilities, and food. His mother's wages paid for extras. Suddenly, Mark and his mother were scrambling. They began eating through their savings. Mark found work at Walmart to help with bills. A local immigrant rights group, the Montgomery County Immigrant Rights Collective, organized fundraising to help cover basics.
Marco was transferred from a Baltimore federal building to a detention center in Mississippi, where he lost 30 pounds from the poor quality food and the psychological toll. He spent three months there before an immigration judge ordered his removal, despite documentation showing he had lived in the country for 37 years. The judge dismissed his application for humanitarian relief, a program that might have allowed him to stay.
Days before deportation, Marco wrote his son a one-page letter filled front and back. It began with memories of Mark's birth. He urged his son to care for his mother and girlfriend, to exercise, to keep learning, and to pursue a career as an electrician. "You can do small jobs by yourself and the pay range is from 100 to 200 dollars in a few hours installing lights, switches, replacing plugs," he wrote. Mark later chuckled at his father's practical advice, recognizing it for what it was: a parent trying to ensure his child would survive without him.
Mark decided to fight back. He asked his math teacher for extra assignments to rebuild his grade. He reconnected with his half-sister after a decade of estrangement. She promised to care for him if anything happened to his mother. "That was one good thing out of this," Mark said. She's expecting a baby soon, which means Mark will become an uncle.
On graduation day, the family had contemplated ways to include Marco in person. They considered ordering a life-sized cardboard cutout but couldn't arrange it in time. After the ceremony, Mark called his father from an Italian restaurant in Baltimore, surrounded by his mother, sister, and her family. He thought about the carne asada his father would have cooked, the backyard party with family friends that never happened.
Marco, now in Mexico with his aging parents and brother, watched the livestream from Aguascalientes. "I was very happy. A little sad that I couldn't be present," he said. He struggles with his own trauma from detention and grief over separation. He started working odd jobs almost immediately after arriving, refusing to burden his family further, though the money he makes falls far short of what he'd like to send home.
He's exploring options to return to the United States legally, or to relocate to Canada, anywhere closer to his son and wife. "It will take me time," he said. In the meantime, he watches Mark grow into someone he barely recognizes. "Before the arrest, Mark was still a child. He's grown so much since then," Marco said with amazement.
Mark is preparing for community college, where he plans to study civil or mechanical engineering. His father had suggested the electrician trade, but Mark convinced him that engineering could be more lucrative over time. He's saving money for a trip to Mexico in August, hoping flights won't exhaust his budget. If he makes it, he's packing his cap and gown. He and his father will recreate the graduation they lost, posing for pictures together at last.
A recent investigation found that during the first seven months of the Trump administration's current term, federal agents arrested the parents of at least 27,000 children, including 12,000 U.S. citizens. The Department of Homeland Security deported roughly twice as many parents per month during that period compared with 2024. Mark's story is one of thousands unfolding across the country.
Author James Rodriguez: "This isn't an immigration debate anymore when a high school senior is working Walmart shifts to keep the lights on and his father is writing letters from a detention cell about electrician wages."
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