Fidel Rivera's recently purchased two-story, white concrete house in a Merida suburb does not yet feel like a home. The walls lack much decoration, the furniture is limited and Fidel palpably pines for his family in North Carolina: "That was my everything, my family."
Last October, as ICE raids escalated throughout the country, Fidel, who was born near Mexico City but lived for most of his adult life in Raleigh, self-deported. Begrudgingly, he left behind his wife of 17 years, Jenni Rivera, and the couple's teenage daughters, Isabella and Mackenzie. Fidel is part of a "mixed family;" he is undocumented but his wife and daughters are U.S. citizens.
The notion that undocumented people can marry a U.S. citizen and quickly obtain a green card is a misconception. Each case is different but Fidel is barred from entering the United States for at least 10 years. Proposed bipartisan legislation, The Dignity Act, would give judges more discretion to keep mixed families together in the United States, but Adriel D. Orozco, Senior Policy Counsel of the American Immigration Council, questions its political viability: "It is really difficult to see how a Republican-controlled Congress would be able to pass a bill that has some semblance of legal pathways for undocumented communities."
Living in the shadows had gutted the Riveras. Fidel lost sleep. He started quarreling with Jenni. And he imagined that every police car on the road could lead to his indefinite detention. He pantomimed pounding his chest to illustrate the pressure he felt before leaving North Carolina. He worried that his daughters would see him in chains. "I don't want to give that image ... in their brains ... for the rest of the lives," he said.
The Department of Homeland Security portrays self-deportations as part of a success story. "The numbers don't lie," read a press release from September. "Two million illegal aliens have been removed or self-deported in just 250 days ... making American communities safe."
But there are financial as well as human costs associated with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Jenni pointed out that math teachers like her are "hot commodities," something that she reminds her students when her classroom becomes cluttered: "I'm like, 'Y'all better not leave your bags out here for me to trip on, because there's not enough of us.'"
She expected to continue teaching part-time after 30 years on the job, but now she plans to retire in Mexico as soon as possible. "I'm on the five-year countdown," she said.
Jenni also doubts that her daughters will continue to live in the United States once she joins Fidel in Mexico. "They're not white, so they don't feel like the opportunities are going to be there for them here, as they may be in other parts of the world," she said.
Jenni catalogued other ramifications from their new living arrangement, including a "very long honey-do list."
"On New Year's Eve, the girls and I came home, after being at some friends, closed the garage door, and I heard a really loud bang," she said.
One of the garage-door-opener's springs snapped, requiring a call to a repair company. Fidel, an electrician with construction experience, could have fixed the door. "He was very handy," said Jenni, slipping into past tense.
Return to the old country
Returning to a country that he left at 17 and a city that he had never previously visited proved a challenge. Fidel struggled, for instance, with Mexico's notorious bureaucracy to obtain documentation. "It took me three weeks to put my name on the electric bill," he said.
Jenni handled most of the family's administrative duties, she explained during a FaceTime call while on her lunch break from teaching. "He told me that I crippled him," she said with a chuckle. "Because all these years I did all of his paperwork. ... Now, he's appreciating me a little bit more."
The couple met salsa dancing in Raleigh. "He stepped on my feet," recalled Jenni. "I told him that he owed me ice cream because he kept stepping on my feet."
They now try to nurture their relationship over Zoom. "It's not even like we're always looking at each other in the Zoom, right? But that's the only way we can ... sit and have coffee together," she said.
But, she admitted, "I miss having my husband here every day, like every moment of every day. ... But in our situation, we're pretty fortunate, because I was this person that was, like, overly preparing for the only thing that I could prepare for, right?"
Fidel looks forward to temporarily reuniting with his family this summer. In the meantime, he reminisced about weekend outings with his girls to the "Mexican store" in Raleigh, where they would snack on tacos, chicharrones, and other treats.
"They are so happy because they got the Mexican sodas. And we are in heaven," he said.
He proudly pulled out a giant handmade goodbye card, reading "WE WILL MISS YOU!" signed by dozens of former colleagues from his last job in North Carolina, where he worked as a foreman at an electrical contractor. "It's been a good ride, my brother," wrote one fan.
Fortunately, Fidel reconnected with an acquaintance from job sites in North Carolina who had moved to Merida before he did. His friend and his wife helped Fidel cope with culture shock.
"That was a lifesaver. ... Yeah, they adopt me," said Fidel. "They take me to the church. They take me to the soccer."
Jenni and Fidel envision guiding future immigration exiles, people who must trade fear for longing.
"It's probably too big of a house for the two of us," said Jenni of her Merida home. "But in our in the back of our minds, we're also looking at this as an opportunity to help other people that may be in our situation — that need a landing place."
