For the past two months, as federal agents have carried out 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 throughout the day, and the front door is reinforced with a metal bar to prevent it from being forced open.
They have lived in the Midwestern city for more than a decade, but after two US citizens were shot dead last month by federal immigration agents, 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, speaking under a pseudonym, as did her husband and son.
The 47-year-old mother has four children. Luis stays at home with her because he was born in Mexico. Her other three children are US-born citizens, but she says she is consumed by fear every time they step outside.
“I’m always afraid that even though they’re citizens, they won’t be respected and could be taken away just because of the colour of their skin,” she said, her voice shaking.
The children know to text before returning home; otherwise, the door will not be opened when they knock.
At 15, Luis longs for the freedom his brothers and sister have and dreams of walking to the fast-food restaurant “just down the street – when things get better”.
“Right now it’s literally so close, but so far.”
‘Trump swindled us.’
Once his online classes end, Luis escapes into a first-person shooter game called Half-Life, often playing for five hours a day.
“It’s the only thing that makes me forget what’s going on,” he said quietly.
His father, Carlos is furious about their situation.
He works installing granite worktops and has spent nearly $11,000 on legal fees for his family’s visa applications, a process that has dragged on for almost three years.
Both he and Ana hold work permits. But the armed, masked agents deployed to the city under the Trump administration no longer recognise those documents as protection 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 against deportation, it felt like he had swindled us,” the 43-year-old said.
“I don’t think we deserve this. We haven’t done anything wrong. We are not criminals.”
There are widespread fears of abuse amid the militarised raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the two agencies enforcing Trump’s hardline policies.
In Democratic strongholds such as Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Chicago, teams of masked agents have intensified street operations, targeting working people at bus stops and outside hardware stores.
Carlos said the situation was different during Trump’s first term, when enforcement actions were more targeted and he did not feel the need to barricade himself indoors.
‘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 are mounting over how many innocent people are being caught up in the raids.
In Los Angeles, data from a surge in operations last summer showed that more than half of those detained had no criminal record.
Between Carlos’s job and the occasional work Ana found as a cook or cashier, the family usually earned around $6,000 a month.
Since December, however, they have had no income at all.
To cover their $2,200 rent in January, they borrowed $1,500 from a friend.
They do not know how they will manage this month and hope that the federal agents targeting immigrants in Minnesota will be redeployed elsewhere.
But doubts persist.
“What if it never stops?” Carlos asked. “The president has three years to go. Three years is a long time.”
Ana said she sometimes imagines returning to Mexico but added, “The only thing keeping me here is my children’s dreams.”
