For the two months that federal agents have been conducting immigration raids in Minneapolis, Ana, Carlos and their son Luis have locked themselves inside their home, feeling trapped behind their own deadbolt.
The curtains in the Mexican family’s house remain closed all day, and the door is braced with a metal bar to prevent it from being forced open.
For more than a decade they have lived in this Midwestern city, where two US citizens were shot and killed this month by federal immigration agents, and US President Donald Trump’s second term has turned their American dream into a nightmare.
“It’s inhuman to live like this, a prisoner in your own home,” Ana told AFP, using a pseudonym, as do her husband and son.
The 47-year-old mother has four children. Luis stays indoors with her because he was born in Mexico. The other three are US citizens, but she worries every time they leave the house.
“I’m always afraid that even though they’re citizens, they won’t be respected and that they could be taken away just because of the colour of their skin,” she said, trembling.
The children know to text before they come home; otherwise the door will not open when they knock.
At 15, Luis longs to come and go as his brothers and sister do and dreams of walking to the fast-food spot “right down the street—when things get better.”
“Right now it’s literally so close, but so far.”
Trump swindled us
Once his online classes are over, Luis spends hours playing a first-person shooter game called Half-Life, often for five hours a day.
“It’s the only thing that makes me forget what’s going on,” he murmured.
His father, Carlos, seethes at their current ordeal.
He works installing granite countertops and has paid nearly $11,000 in legal fees for his family’s visa applications, which have dragged on for almost three years.
He and Ana both hold work permits. But the armed, masked agents deployed by the Trump administration into the city disregard that document, which no longer protects against arrest or deportation.
“They give you a work permit, but it doesn’t allow you to stay in this country legally. How is that possible?” Carlos asked.
“When we realised Trump had removed the protection (of the work permit) against deportation, we felt as if he swindled us,” the 43-year-old added.
“I don’t think we deserve this. We haven’t done anything wrong. We are not criminals.”
Widespread fears of mistreatment have grown amid the militarised raids carried out by the two federal agencies enforcing Trump’s hardline policies — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
In major Democratic strongholds such as Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Chicago, teams of masked agents have stepped up street sweeps, targeting working people at bus stops and hardware stores.
Carlos said things were different during Trump’s first term, when he did not feel the need to lock himself in because operations were more targeted.
Metro Surge
Two men Carlos knew were deported during Trump’s first term.
“One was involved in drug trafficking; the other beat his wife,” he said.
As “Operation Metro Surge” continues in Minneapolis, questions remain over how many innocent people are caught up in raids.
In Los Angeles, during a surge in operations last summer, statistics showed that more than half of the immigrants detained had no criminal record.
Typically, between Carlos’s work and the odd jobs Ana takes as a cook or cashier, the couple bring in around $6,000 a month.
But since December, they have had no income. To pay their $2,200 rent in January, they borrowed $1,500 from a friend.
They do not know how they will manage next month but are praying that the federal agents hunting immigrants in Minnesota are sent elsewhere.
Doubt creeps in.
“What if it never stops?” Carlos asked. “The president has three years to go — three years is a long time.”
Ana admitted she sometimes imagines returning to Mexico, but “the only thing keeping me here are my children’s dreams.”
