A migrant mother and two of her children have gone missing, say frantic family members who fear their loved ones are in Border Patrol custody and facing imminent deportation.
On Feb. 11, Yesenia was driving home from her job selling empanadas and arepas at a QuickTrip on the south side of Tucson when she was stopped for driving too slowly by a state trooper from the Arizona Department of Public Safety. In the back of the car were two of her four children, a 6-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy, as well as some supplies for her work cleaning houses.
The speed limit on Valencia Road was 40 mph, but Yesenia was driving 25 when she was pulled over by the trooper, according to a traffic ticket shared by the family and reviewed by Arizona Luminaria.
The ticket stated she was driving at a speed that would “impede traffic,” and included additional violations for no insurance, a suspended license plate and not wearing seatbelts.
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Shortly after Yesenia was pulled over, a Border Patrol truck with two agents arrived at the scene, according to Oscar Rodriguez, a friend of the family and an elder in the Seventh-day Adventist Church Yesenia attended. Rodriguez came to the scene in response to Yesenia’s call.
That was the last the family, or anyone in Yesenia’s Tucson community, has heard from her. For three days they have been in the dark as to the whereabouts of Yesenia and her two children.
“We’re so scared,” Yesenia’s sister-in-law told Arizona Luminaria.
Yesenia’s detainment, and the unanswered questions about where she and her two children have spent the last three nights and where they may go next, highlight the fear, uncertainty and chaos surrounding immigration enforcement in the first weeks of the Trump administration’s promised crackdown — including for migrants who have not been charged with serious crimes.
Yesenia’s sister-in-law and others searched online detainee locators for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as for Pima County jail. Nothing turned up.
“Imagine what she’s going through,” her sister-in-law said.
On Feb. 13, Arizona Luminaria asked ICE officials for information about the family. By email, ICE spokesperson Fernando X. Burgos Ortiz referred questions about the family to Border Patrol.
A Border Patrol spokesperson told Arizona Luminaria, also on Feb. 13, they couldn’t speak about individual cases, but did confirm a family was transferred to their custody on the night of Feb. 11, when Yesenia’s family said she was detained.
Isabel Garcia, a longtime immigration activist in Tucson and one of the leaders of Derechos Humanos, said, “I think what we are seeing is going backwards in this country. I’m incredibly upset.”
Derechos Humanos is a Tucson-based organization that “promotes the human and civil rights of all migrants regardless of their immigration status.”
Standing in downtown Tucson Thursday, with an interfaith group of people protesting the immigration crackdown, Garcia tried to summarize the consequences.
“The outrage and inhumanity of it,” she said of the family separation.
Yesenia’s sister-in-law asked not to be named for fear of repercussions from immigration or law enforcement officials. She said their family still hasn’t told Yesenia’s other two children — 8 and 14 years old — what happened to their mother and siblings.
“We don’t know what to tell them, we don’t want to scare them,” she said.
Arizona Luminaria asked for policy guidelines about when troopers call or transfer people to Border Patrol custody, as well as if they transferred Yesenia and her children to Border Patrol.
Bart Graves, a DPS spokesperson, said on Feb. 13 they would try to provide the policy and information about the case. By Friday, they had not provided any information. Arizona Luminaria filed a public records request for an official copy of the traffic citation.
State and local law enforcement agencies in Arizona, including the Department of Public Safety, are authorized to look up a person’s immigration status under the remaining provisions of Senate Bill 1070 — the so-called “show me your papers” law — that were not struck down by federal courts.
An informal opinion published by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office in 2016 permits state and local departments to contact ICE or Customs and Border Protection — which oversees the Border Patrol — if they have “reasonable suspicion” the person they detain is in the country unlawfully. But it also states that officers cannot prolong a stop or arrest solely to verify immigration status.
Arizona Luminaria reached out to the Attorney General’s Office, which flipped from Republican to Democrat leadership in 2023, to ask if there was any updated guidance for law enforcement in Arizona to enforce SB 1070. A spokesperson for the office agreed to look into it, but was unable to confirm as of Friday afternoon.
Border Patrol also has statutory authority to enforce immigration laws within a 100-mile zone from the international border. Tucson is within that zone.
Deportation guidelines under the Biden administration focused on individuals with criminal histories, or those who posed a threat to national or border security. It also gave immigration officials greater discretion to take into account mitigating factors like the impact on the family or whether they qualified for humanitarian protection.
On his first day in office, Trump revoked those guidelines and expanded deportation priorities to include any person in the country unlawfully, regardless of criminal history. Trump’s administration also directed immigration officials to prioritize people with deportation orders, like Yesenia.
Joanna Williams is the executive director of Kino Border Initiative, a migrant aid and advocacy organization based in Nogales. Williams said they were deeply concerned that a traffic stop by the Department of Public Safety could have ended in Yesenia’s transfer to immigration authorities.
“If DPS is involved in these kinds of arrests then there will be more families within Arizona that are impacted, more families separated, and more long-term residents of our communities who are torn away from their homes,” Williams said.
“A tragic case of family separation”
Yesenia is from Venezuela. In 2024, she was denied asylum, according to court records and an attorney who is involved with her case. The order for deportation was in absentia, according to her attorney.
In 2021, the Biden administration provided temporary legal protections for many Venezuelans who could not safely return to their home country. A wave of people fled the Latin American nation amid civil unrest under a regime that was increasingly targeting citizens’ rights to protest their government.
The limited protection did not provide a pathway to citizenship, but the Biden administration extended Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans in 2023 and 2025. It is unclear whether Yesenia had filed for protected status. However, any such claim would be moot now that the Trump administration has revoked the policy.
On Feb. 1, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceled Temporary Protected Status — which provides temporary relief from deportation — for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans living throughout the United States.
“It’s too painful,” the sister-in-law said. “I can’t do anything but keep thinking, I have three kids. It’s such a blow. Everybody is so scared.”
From what local advocates for migrants and their families can piece together about current enforcement trends, it is likely Yesenia will be deported to México, despite not being a Mexican citizen.
México has been accepting a limited number of citizens from certain other countries expelled from the United States since at least 2020.
Williams, with the Kino Border Initiative, said it’s rare for people to be deported to their home countries from México. “A tragic case of family separation,” Williams called it.
Faced with that prospect, Yesenia’s family is now deliberating — without her — what to do with her other two children. And how they might find their loved ones, ensure they are all safe in government detention or a foreign country, when local law enforcement officials aren’t sharing any information with the family.
“Sometimes the laws are unjust. That’s just my point of view,” said Rodriguez, the Seventh Day Adventist church elder. “I’m thinking of the family, what is going to happen to the kids?”
“I hope, whoever sees this, that their hearts will be touched,” he said.
Yesenia’s sister-in-law is grateful for the community support, but said she hasn’t slept since her family was detained.
“She cleaned houses. She sold empanadas to the community,” repeatedly saying that Yesenia didn’t do anything wrong. “Now we have to act like we’re hiding, like we did something wrong. We’re not criminals.”
Speaking rapidly, she caught her breath and added after a pause, “What do we do with the children?”
Reporter Rafael Carranza contributed to this article
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