STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Trump administration says it's made more than 5,000 immigration arrests over the past week. Keep that up for a year, it'd be something more than a quarter million. And some people are asking what they might do if authorities come for them. During his first term, Trump separated thousands of children from parents or relatives who were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. In the U.S. right now, more than 4 million American children who were born here live with a parent who lacks legal status. Chip Mitchell of member station WBEZ got to know a family on Chicago's North Side.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
CHIP MITCHELL, BYLINE: After seven months of breastfeeding, Damariz Posadas' baby is good and chubby.
DAMARIZ POSADAS: I breastfeed him when I'm with him, and at work, I pump. And we're hoping to do that at least until he's 2 years old.
MITCHELL: She says it's not only for nutrition.
POSADAS: It just provides that bonding experience, which I'm very grateful for.
MITCHELL: Damariz was born in Mexico. She speaks Spanish to the baby.
POSADAS: (Speaking Spanish).
MITCHELL: He hears a different language from his dad. His name's Maethee.
MAETHEE: (Speaking Thai).
MITCHELL: Maethee asks that his last name be withheld because he and his wife don't have legal status. He's speaking Thai, the official language of Thailand, where he was born.
MAETHEE: Last week we found out he can now be tickled, like, manually, instead of just by raspberries.
MITCHELL: Damariz and Maethee, by coincidence, they both arrived in the U.S. at Age 3. They grew up in Chicago. They met in high school and started dating more than a decade ago. They both qualified for an Obama era program known as DACA - or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It shields half a million young people from deportation. Damariz and Maethee both have master's degrees. DACA enables them to work legally, and they both have good jobs. She's a Catholic high school teacher. He's a software developer and works from home with the baby. They rent a two-bedroom apartment in a diverse neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. In a walk-in closet, they have a changing table for the baby.
DAMARIZ POSADAS AND MAETHEE: It's a crib.
MAETHEE: It's a crib.
(LAUGHTER)
MAETHEE: It was our first crib, but he kept smacking his head on the side in his sleep.
MITCHELL: They have fun with the baby, but life for Damariz and Maethee in the United States, the only country they know, it's always seemed precarious. During Donald Trump's first presidency, he tried to end DACA. Their stress levels soared again as Trump campaigned last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. We have no choice.
(CHEERING)
MITCHELL: Now the arrests have begun. Trump's administration says it's targeting public safety threats, but his border czar says the arrests have already gone beyond those targets. And there's no promise to protect DACA recipients. Trump has sent mixed messages on the program. That has Damariz and Maethee worried about the possibility of being separated from their son, a U.S. citizen. Worries like that are nothing new to Damariz. As a 3-year-old, her first solid memory was an overnight hike in the desert with her mom and a bunch of strangers.
POSADAS: I remember heavy darkness, just pitch-black all around. And it was cold. It was freezing.
MITCHELL: They were crossing the border into Texas. Damariz says she must've been making noise because this one guy, he was worried about U.S. border patrol agents. He confronted Damariz's mom.
POSADAS: Saying you need to shut her up. You can't have her screaming. So she was just trying to calm me down. And then the next thing I remember is that he was coming over to me with tape. They were about to just tape my mouth shut.
MITCHELL: They made it across the border and found their way to Chicago. Damariz grew up in Little Village, a neighborhood full of families with Mexico roots. She made it into one of Illinois' highest ranked high schools. But without legal status to be in the country, life was rough. When she was 17, federal immigration agents arrived at her family's house. She says one pointed a gun at her head. They took away her stepfather. After his deportation, he tried crossing back in from Mexico.
POSADAS: He had a cellphone that we had given him. And the cellphone was still receiving calls, so we're calling that cellphone just every day. And at one point it stops ringing. And that's the last I've ever heard of him. We can assume he died.
MITCHELL: Damariz says she doesn't want to go through anything like that again. University of Illinois Law Professor Lauren Aronson says it's conceivable Trump would separate children from parents.
LAUREN ARONSON: I don't put anything past them (laughter) given, you know, history.
MITCHELL: History of Trump's first administration separating kids from families at the border. Damariz and Maethee say they're planning ways to keep their family intact. Mexican officials urge immigrant parents to get dual citizenship for their children born in the U.S. to make sure, if the parents are deported, the kids don't end up lost in the U.S. child welfare system. Damariz and Maethee are keeping their baby with them around the clock, no sitters or child care ever. They're going over every possible scenario for immigration agents taking one or both of them, and which one first. And they're working through a list of stuff to get done, finances, phone service, what to do with furniture.
MAETHEE: Like these couches, like, maybe they can live in a storage unit here for a couple of years until I can get them over.
MITCHELL: The plan ultimately is to settle in Thailand. So this month, they got Thai citizenship for the baby. They've applied for his Thai passport. But while Maethee would be deported to Thailand, Damariz would be deported to Mexico. They want the baby to stay with her, so they strategize. The baby needs citizenship for all three countries and passports, too. The stress hits Damariz hardest at night after she wakes up to feed the baby.
POSADAS: Sometimes having thoughts run cyclically in my head, and then I just end up staying up for hours, and then he's awake again.
MITCHELL: The same thoughts over and over, like if she's separated from the baby, will he take to formula?
POSADAS: And then also, will he remember me? I mean, he's 7 months old, right? Like, if I'm gone for a month, let's say, because we're trying to get me to Thailand somehow, and it's just a hard thing to do, when I see him again, is he still going to hug me? Is he still going to smile when he sees me? Is he going to give me that little gummy smile? Is there going to be a tooth in that smile now that I missed? I mean, I don't want to think about these things, but I do.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
POSADAS: Mama, mama, mama.
MITCHELL: This week, Damariz says, she's seeing whether her employer can sponsor a work visa or permanent residence. It's one more thing on her deportation to-do list.
For NPR News, I'm Chip Mitchell in Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANNAH STATER'S "MYSTERY OF LOVE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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