The Daily - Family Separation 2.0: An Update

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since.In his first 100 days in office this term, President Trump struggled to fulfill his promise to carry out mass deportations, a reality that has prompted his administration to change its strategy.Rather than putting its focus on migrants with a criminal record, or those who recently crossed the border, the White House is increasingly seeking to deport those who came to the United States decades ago and who have established a life, career and family in America.Jessica Cheung, a producer on “The Daily,” tells the story of one such migrant through the eyes of his daughter.Guest: Jessica Cheung, a senior producer at The New York Times, working on “The Daily.”Background reading: Listen to the original version of the episode here.The Trump administration has been frustrated over the pace of deportations.Inside a chaotic U.S. deportation flight to Brazil.Photo: Jose Luis Gonzalez/ReutersFor more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hey, it's Michael. All this week, the Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year, listening back and hearing what's happened in the time since they first ran. Today, we return to the subject of President Trump's broad and historic crackdown on immigration. To reach his promised deportation numbers, Trump increasingly sought to deport those without a criminal record, those who came to the U.S. decades ago, and who have established lives, careers, and family in this country.

Daily producer Jessica Chung told the story of one such man who was detained this year through the eyes of his daughter. It's Tuesday, December 30th. So I was in class. I was about to turn in all my work to the teacher, so I was already starting to pack up my thing slowly. And I got a call for my mom. she seemed very down and she was like it's like when you hear somebody they're trying not to cry

but like they're really like holding it in and i could hear in her voice and that's when i started to get a little bit worried and she told me that like your father got detained and it's just like you just start envisioning the worst like he's in this terrible place this is a hardworking man no criminal record like you guys just took him I first spoke to Ayla back in February. This was a month into the Trump administration, which had promised quick and mass deportations. I was calling immigration lawyers around the country

trying to get a sense of who exactly was getting targeted for deportation and how ICE was finding them. And that's when a lawyer called me back, saying you got to talk to Ayla. Hello? Hi. Hi. Hi. So this is Jessica.

This is Ala. She's Fabrice's 20-year-old daughter. Okay, great. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. My name is Aila Gomez. Right now, Ila's a sophomore at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Massachusetts, where she's studying architecture and interior design. She was raised in a town called Saugas, just outside Boston, where days before we had talked, her dad was detained by ICE officers. Tell me a little bit about your dad. What is his name? How old is it? is he, and what does he do? My dad, he's Fabricio Gomez.

He is 47 years old, and he works at a construction company of his own. Isla told me in 2001, her dad had settled here in Massachusetts as an undocumented immigrant. He'd come here from Brazil. This was three years before Isla was born. Tell me about why he left Brazil. Sorry, I'm just asking you. like these questions for my mom. So my mom said it was due to the violence down there

and like he couldn't make a living for himself, let alone have a family down there. When he first got here, he lived with his aunt who was already here. But eventually he met Ayla's mom, who was also from Brazil. They actually walked into each other and they were like, oh my God, like I remember you, blah, blah, blah.

And they moved out on their own with money Fabrizio made by working in construction. So he had been working, like, small jobs, almost like a handyman. And then he met somebody, which is my dad's old boss that still remains in our life. Ken, and he slowly taught my dad how to work. It went from, like, changing door panels, windows to fixing inside the house. And then I went to roofing. until he gathered up all his knowledge that he had.

And then that's when he decided that he was ready to open his company and start creating a life for himself and our family. And is your sense that he loves his job? Yes. My dad is actually very passionate for his job. You would think he wouldn't be because you're constantly going up a ladder. It's so cold since we live in Massachusetts. And it's really a hard job.

Even though he wasn't fluent in English, He had this way of connecting with people. My dad, he's always talked to his clients. Like, he knew them for so long. I don't know how he talks to them. Like, everybody understands him. For as long as she can remember, Isles wanted to be just like him.

As a little kid, I was like, my dad's kind of tomboy. I'd always buy construction little kid's kit. And I would always go around the house with, like, plastic toys. me and my dad are this type of person where we take something that is not good and we reform it when something's not designed properly it just feels down and when you reform it it brings another life it sounds like you and your dad shared a special bond over your love of building things yes i always wanted to work with my dad which is why i went to college for architecture and interior design. So eventually in the future, I could work with my dad's company.

Alice says her dream is that her dad's company becomes a family company with her. His dream was always for us to go to college and pursue something that we have passion for because they weren't able to choose their own path. You're not born saying I'm going to clean toilets. I'm going to be a contractor. You're born thinking like, I want to be a businesswoman. I want to have my own company. I want to have my own home. And it's just like, that's what their main goal for us was that we're able to choose our own path. My dad, he's always been the person to tell us, work hard, nothing's gifted, nothing's handed, go after it. So fast forward to today, the dream that you described your dad having for you guys was in progress. Like,

you're in college, your dad is working hard at a business that he owns. When Trump was inaugurated on January 20th, did your family have conversations about what precautions you guys would take given that he was aggressively pursuing people without documentation? I would always ask my dad, like, should we worry? And he'd always tell us, like, no. Like, there's, don't worry. As much as obviously, when I'm alone, you always have that thought in the back of your mind. Like, what am I going to do?

What if things go down? Fabricio had no criminal record, and he didn't want to hide from law enforcement. He wanted to do things the right way. He's had a pending application for a visa. In the meantime, he's been checking in with ICE. He's been doing that for 12 years. In February, just one month after Trump's inauguration, he was due for another check-in. So he just shows up for his yearly check-in, and you go there, you represent yourself,

talk about whatever is being asked. And that was about it. And so her dad shows up to his check-in like he always does. And it was soon after that that her mom called her in class, notifying Isla that her dad had been detained. After was hyperventilating, I felt like my heart just left my chest. I think about him. him being there. I think about him being in this close-up space. So I worry a lot at night.

Like, what if he's panicking and we don't know? What if he's holding strong? But he's actually having the hardest time in his life. Like, that's what constantly replays in my head. So it just felt like my whole heart got ripped out of my chest because I never got to really say a proper goodbye. Like, I'll see you later. We'll be right back. Ila's dad was detained on February 26. He was taken to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, about an hour's drive away from their home.

Eventually, Ila was able to reach him on the phone. I'll give it to my dad. From the first thing that he called us to speak to us, That man has holding strong. He has the most positive energy and so positive that he will see us and things will go back to not normal because I don't feel like anybody could really treat life as normal after the situation, but definitely better. Alice's dad told her to hold strong too. He said the detention center wasn't so bad. He told her he got in the job cleaning, which allowed more time outside of his cell.

He started a Bible study with a group. of other detainees, and he was allowed visitors. I'm the only one eligible to visit because I'm over 18. But he told me, like, as much as I would love to see you guys so much, just don't come here because this is not the person that I am, and it would hurt to see you get up from that chair and turn your back and have to leave. But as the days in custody, turned into weeks.

The two of them adapted to a new version of their relationship. No visits. They talk on the phone, a lot, as often as five times a day. We open every conversation like he was here with us. Like I'm walking into the house saying hi to him. Binta, hi, dad, how are you? I missed you.

We continue lives how it is on the phone. I gave him updates on my grades. I gave him updates on my finals. Well, I can't show to him my projects since they're all like online-based because they're all like foreplans, stuff like that. But I like give him the visual analysis. These calls went on for two months.

And then in April, Ila learned of two major developments. First, ICE was going to enforce. and order of removal against her dad, which meant he could be deported immediately. Second, ICE was moving him over 1,600 miles to a notorious detention center in Louisiana, which had been investigated by the Department of Homeland Security for alleged abuses.

Isla says her dad's new detention center in Pine Prairie, Louisiana, is nothing like the one in Plymouth. It's quite literally a prison where people that actually committed real crimes would be in, like, he's in a jail cell where it's just, like, 10 times worse. Things feel different. She senses that the brave face her dad had put on, is starting to crack. I don't want to say he's in full panic, but he's really feeling it. Even so on the phone, like, I can hear himself let go.

And this change in mood is starting to have an impact on Isla 2. There's something wrong. My anxiety has been over the roof. it just feels like it's so hard to get through your day. It's so hard. You cannot tell me they'll be taking my dad and he will be in Brazil for the next 10 years up until we can reapply for him.

Like that does not cross my mind. Oh, man. Would you ever consider moving to Brazil to be with your dad if it came to that? As much as I would love to stay here and be like, yeah, my family is going to reunite in Brazil. It can't be. a plan due to the fact that my parents have worked way too damn hard, too many years of their

damn life to come here. I will be continuing college. And if anything, I will be continuing their success times that by 100. I refuse to believe that they'll be throwing that away. And if I can even continue my dad's company to keep going and get other people to manage it, I will be continuing to making their name. It's one thing to take my dad away from me. It's another to take everything that they work.

hard for. I wanted to ask, you know, what do you make of the fact that for a lot of Americans, your father's story, while sympathetic, might at the end of the day feel like, yeah, he ultimately was here, not legally. What would you say to those people who might agree with the administration's policies to remove people like your dad who don't have documentation here? I get it if you're talking about a murderer that doesn't belong here. And he's just, out running on the street or I'd get that. But if you're okay with separating families because they're just simply immigrants, that's a battle you're dealing within yourself.

If they're hearing my story specifically, I hope they hear that and that they try to picture one of their daughters sitting here and having to talk about one of their parents like this because somebody out there is wishing that on somebody else. And I just really want them to picture that. You mentioned you spent most of your life envisioning a future with your dad and going into business with your dad. Given everything that's happened, what is that dream now? As right now, there's like no dream, no goal. It's just like, okay, well, my dream is to kind of just be able to push through this.

Have you dreamt about reuniting with your dad, on the other hand? That's been my little I-Drial dream since February 26th, just me getting that call of being told, go pick up your dad. And all I could think up is me just like parking my car, getting out my car. He's standing outside, like quite literally the same exact person he left, like in his work clothes, just the way he is with his face, like his regular face. Mm, like no time had passed. No, like literally no time has passed, but it feels like spent upside down. Yeah. And just hugging my dad and all I could literally do is cry, like cry my literal heart out.

Like everything that I've been holding in, like within these two months, that's exactly how I see. It just feels like it's going to happen. and it's all I think about. That's all I can envision, like, over and over again, every single day that I wake up. And it's just me. Like, it's not like my mom's around, my sister's around. It's just, like, me and my dad.

Ila never got the call to pick up her dad. Instead, a few days after we had talked, she received news that her dad had been deported from the U.S. to Brazil. So Ila packed a small suitcase for herself and a bigger one for her dad and she booked a ticket for one to Brazil. And on Tuesday morning, at the Arrivals terminal in Bella Orizanchi Airport,

Ila finally got to be with her dad. After the break, senior producer Jessica Chong on what happened after Ila reunited with her father. Once you go through all the tunnel and everything, it's literally like a storefront door, like a sliding door, it just slides and like there's behind that door. And I literally see him like standing in front of the door. I gave him a big hug. Like I missed him so much.

It was so shocking. It's just like, what am I doing in Brazil? was like such a weird moment where it's just like I'm so happy to see him but I'm in shock I'm like what are we doing here I guess this is it like this is how things are for now I guess the feeling you're describing is that you don't feel like you belong there in Brazil yeah relationship wise and treating each other completely normal for me it was definitely that feeling of like every day that I would wake up it would be so weird it's like hot there it's tropical I don't belong here I don't belong here this is not where my dad's supposed to me

this is not where I'm supposed to be waking up and like I'm trying to see my dad adjust there too is very weird to me it feels like he's like on a like vacation that there's no end date to. Is there specific things you saw that like triggered you into thinking I'm not supposed to be here? Is it like the smell of I don't know, the air? No, it was actually like seeing things. Seeing my dad with his brothers, I'd never seen that a day in my life because he has four of them actually was very weird to me and I couldn't like grasping. They're just talking. They have, like, so much to catch up on within years. And

it's not that he doesn't belong. Obviously, that's his family. But, like, that is, you know, not his family, family. Like, where his family, like, his future wise here. So seeing my dad, like, sitting there with the past, as if they're little's, and, you know, the present is somewhere else. It literally feels like he's catching up on the past. And, in my opinion, going anywhere. You mentioned that you wanted when we last talked to work with your dad and that the dream was to start a company, to design and build places. And I guess I wonder if that's still the plan, if you feel like that dream is still possible in some way. I definitely feel like the dream

is powerful. There is change of plans, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean I can't continue his legacy and my dad definitely didn't come here for i believe 20 or 24 years of his life here built all this and us give up it's a little crazy to say but that actually made me a little bit more determined like it makes me work harder because he's not here i do co-ops i work full-time you know Ever since life took a big churn financial-wise. So I'm always constantly working when I'm not in school. It's a very busy life. I just work.

I just work and go to school and the cycle repeats every single day. I kind of took this as a sign of like I need to get up and kind of do my own thing, build my life. I can't depend on my parents. Like, they're always there for moral support, phone call away. But I need to grow up. I put my foot on the ground and say, well, I'm going to make the best of it. Today's episode was reported and produced by Jessica Chung. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Jody Becker with help from Ben Calhoun.

It was fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, Alicia E-tube, Will Reed, and Marion Lazzano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley, Rowan Amisto, and Chris Wood. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Bobaro. See you tomorrow. Thank you.