Some older siblings left raising younger family members after parents' deportation, advocates say
Over 4 million U.S. families contain both citizens and noncitizens, experts say.
On Aug. 9, Wendy Domingo was driving her parents and her four younger siblings to buy her little brother sneakers for the new school year. It was the first time in months the entire family had been in one car together. Typically, Wendy only drove one of her parents because, although Wendy and her siblings are U.S. citizens, their parents were undocumented and were scared of being detained.
As the family was getting close to the shoe store, the 18-year-old noticed a Border Patrol car behind her vehicle.
"I've never gotten pulled over before and it was a very frantic moment for me because, like, I'm a safe driver, so I was like, did I do something wrong?" Wendy told ABC News.
In a video shared with ABC News, Wendy can be heard asking the Border Patrol officer why she was being pulled over, and he replies that the license plate of the car is registered to a noncitizen.
The video then captures what happened next: As Wendy's younger siblings cried in the car, a Border Patrol officer detained both of her parents after they were unable to produce citizenship documents.
After they exit the car, Wendy can be seen on the video hugging her dad and saying, "Why did we leave the house? Why didn't you just send me?"
In the video, after the officer sees the father and daughter hugging, he tells them that he's not going to deport the parents, but that he will send them to get documents to appear before an immigration judge.
Nevertheless, the parents -- Abraham Domingo and Maria Leiva -- were detained together in Florida and then later sent to separate detention centers. Leiva wassubsequently deported to Guatemala, and Abraham chose to self-deport to avoid prolonged detention.
The Domingo family is one of more than 4 million mixed-status families in the U.S. that contain both citizens and noncitizens, according to several research and immigrant advocacy groups. And Wendy is one of many older siblings who are now taking care of younger family members after their parents' deportation, advocacy groups said.
"The kids are the ones that are losing the most," said Mariana Blanco, director of operations for the Guatemalan-Maya Center, a group arranges reunification flights for minors left behind after their parents were deported.
Blanco said her group has been preparing families for family separations since the start of the second Trump administration and its aggressive immigration crackdown.
"So for Wendy's family and for a lot of our families, they're coming to terms with sending maybe some of their siblings and the oldest staying behind," Blanco told ABC News.
"Wendy's family -- they have a whole community here that would open their homes and welcome them. But they still carry that sadness, knowing that this is their new reality," Blanco said. "There's nothing else that can replace the parents."
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said it does not separate families.
"ICE does not separate families or deport U.S. citizens. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," the spokesperson said. "This is consistent with past administrations' immigration enforcement."
The spokesperson said that Abraham Domingo and Maria Leiva "entered the U.S. illegally." DHS also said Abraham Domingo faced previous domestic violence charges.ABC News confirmed those charges, which were brought in 2024 and were later dropped.
"They were both returned back to their home country of Guatemala," the DHS spokesperson said. "They chose to leave their minor children in the care of their adult child."
Blanco said that her group is currently seeing an increase in the number of children who are being left without their parents following their removal. During the current Trump administration, the group has reunited 57 children with families deported to Guatemala, Colombia and El Salvador.
Blanco's group also helped Eliza Perez, a 21-year-old from Florida, who is taking care of her three younger siblings after her two parents were deported two days before Thanksgiving last year.
Perez put off college to take over her parents' landscaping business and care for her family in their absence. She told ABC News that both of her parents fled Guatemala when they were young adults and had been living in the U.S. for nearly 30 years when they were detained. Her younger siblings are 18, 16, and 14.
"I had to leave my dreams behind, which was school and an office job, or a job with AC. Not out here in the sun," Perez said.
Wendy, who had celebrated her 18th birthday the day before her parents were detained, told ABC News that after the family was pulled over she called family friends to help her and her siblings get home and to figure out where her parents were being taken.
"My dad was a big thing at the church, he was a coordinator at church for three years, so many people loved and respected my family for that," Wendy said. "So then, as I got home, there were many cars parked outside."
About a month later, Wendy decided to send her youngest sibling to Guatemala with the help of the Guatemalan-Maya Center. She told ABC News that she is now working at a hotel to support her three younger siblings who are 16, 14, and 12.
Wendy said that when she has to work late -- sometimes until midnight -- her younger sister has to take care of her other siblings.
"My sister, she's learning how to cook," Wendy said. "My mom had told her to start cooking, to start learning how to cook a while ago, and she never did. And now it's time for her to step up because we all have to step up and be there for each other."
"I'm so used to coming home from school, from work, to my mom being at home," Wendy said. "The house has gone completely quiet."
"My parents really had the American Dream," she said. "They were hoping they could have a life here for their kids and future grandkids, and that American Dream was just ripped out in the span of a few minutes."
