She found it strange that her husband called her on the phone a few minutes after leaving the house on her way to work.
While the phone line remained open, he heard that immigration police were arresting him.
At that moment he understood that his life would change forever. But what she didn’t imagine was that she would end up living in Mexico with her husband and two young daughters.
“There is nothing more important than being together,” says American Janie Hughes, who does not speak Spanish, despite how difficult it is to start from scratch in an unknown country.
These types of decisions are facing families with mixed immigration status (one American spouse and the other undocumented spouse), after Donald Trump increased detentions and deportations of foreign citizens in an irregular situation in the United States since the beginning of his second term in January 2025.
Other couples, such as Raegan Klein and Alfredo Linares, have preferred to voluntarily go to live on the other side of the border to avoid the risk of deportation.
“If something happened to him, I could never forgive myself,” says Klein from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
At BBC Mundo we tell you the story of these two Americans who, together with their husbands, are starting a new stage of their lives in Mexico.
“I had tears of happiness when I saw him again.”
He left the house at 6:30 in the morning on his way to work on October 23 of last year.
Alejandro Pérez said goodbye to his wife, Janie, and their two young daughters, Luna and Lexie, before closing the door.
What he didn’t know at the time was that that morning would be the last time he would be home in St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
About 15 minutes later, Janie received a call from her husband telling her “I think ICE is here,” referring to the Immigration Service and Customs Enforcement agents.
“We started praying,” Janie says, until they made her get out of the car.
At that moment she heard an agent tell her: “Alejandro Pérez, we have an arrest warrant against you.” Then the call was disconnected.
“I fell to the ground on my knees crying non-stop,” says the 29-year-old American.
Being a cook, that same night Alejandro was going to prepare tacos for the pastor at the Presbyterian church to which they have belonged for years.
The dinner had to be suspended after news of the arrest became known.
Being undocumented, the two knew that the most likely scenario was deportation to Mexico. And so it was.
The idea of separating her family, says Janie Pérez, was “simply inconceivable,” even if she had to leave her life in Missouri behind and start a new life in a country completely unknown to her.
“There is nothing more important than being together,” he emphasizes in dialogue with BBC Mundo.
For the Pérezes, religion has been a traditional part of their relationship since they met in 2019, when they worked at the same cafe where he cooked and she was a waitress.
“He was also a man of faith and that was something very important to me,” says Janie.
As time went by, they decided to get married and, since Alejandro was undocumented, they went to consult a lawyer to try to regularize their situation.
The efforts were unsuccessful and, although they knew that he was exposed to the danger of being arrested, they tried to continue with their lives in the most fashionable way possible.
Until everything collapsed when he was detained by ICE agents.
From then on, Janie says, it became clear that her husband’s next stop would be Mexico. But how long would he spend in detention awaiting deportation?
While they were waiting for the judge’s decision, one Sunday she surprised him when she went to see him at the detention center. “Since we couldn’t touch each other, we put our hands in front of each other, separated by glass,” says the American. “And we cried together.”
She also had the opportunity to see him from a distance at each of the court hearings, handcuffed and handcuffed, and with chains around his waist. “It’s heartbreaking for Generation to see it like this,” he says.
But the law is the law. Pérez entered the United States undocumented and that constitutes a crime.
If the laws are clear on this, why should the country allow him to stay, I ask him.
Her husband was born in Michoacán, she explains, one of the states where criminal organizations have their operations center and where – under threats – they recruit children and young people to work with them.
Pérez crossed the border for the first time with his father when he was about 7 years old.
Although they returned to their country of origin, a few years later Alejandro decided to try his luck by traveling to the United States twice without authorization.
In total, he lived about 16 years as an undocumented migrant.
“Although he crossed without authorization, I think he made a morally correct decision when he traveled to the United States,” argues his wife, because he sought opportunities and a life away from criminal organizations.
“All these years he has dedicated himself to working and has no criminal record,” he says.
But court decisions don’t make those kinds of moral distinctions, I tell you.
“Unfortunately not,” he replies. But what is happening now, with mass arrests, he explains, is that they do not distinguish between people accused of violent crimes and people who have never done anything to anyone.
“That makes me think that many want this to be a white-only country. I am white and that doesn’t make me a better person.”
This interview was done at the beginning of March, when her husband’s expulsion was imminent. And so it happened. On March 11 he was deported to Mexico.
A few days later, she traveled to Mexico with her two daughters.
“I had tears of happiness when I saw him again at the airport,” says the American through a video call with her husband, from the state of Querétaro.
The same thing happened to him. When he saw his 3-year-old daughter, Luna, coming to hug him, he felt a deep emotion. “It can’t be explained in words,” he says.
But that happiness has been accompanied by very hard moments. Sometimes he feels confused, Pérez says. You wake up in the middle of the night, look around and wonder: is all this true?
He still doesn’t know how he will manage to adapt to a country that at times seems foreign to him. “Until now I feel like all this is a dream, but I believe in God and I know that he did it for a purpose.”
A more aggressive immigration policy
Despite the marital bond, undocumented foreigners have difficulty obtaining permanent residence – or green card– by marriage, unlike foreigners who entered the country frequently.
According to a letter signed by the former director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in November 2023, about 1.1 million American citizens are married to an undocumented person.
That is the official estimate most used until now, in the absence of more recent data.
The same occurs with the total number of unauthorized migrants living in the United States.
According to the latest Pew Look at Heart projections -with data as of July 2023-, there are about 14 million people (about 4% of the entire US population) in this situation.
It is likely that currently, the study center points out, the population of unauthorized migrants is smaller, as a result of the government’s immigration policies.
The White House has launched an offensive to stop what it considers an “invasion.”
The priority is “the removal of the worst of the worst illegal aliens with criminal records,” says a statement released in December by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The same statement that President Trump has repeated countless times.
But, in practice, many deportees who entered the United States without authorization have clean records.
An investigation by the conservative think tank CATO revealed that only 5% of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were convicted of violent crimes, while the vast majority have no criminal record of any kind.
Gone is the Japanese style barbecue
The story of the American Raegan Klein and the Mexican Alfredo Linares is very different from that of the Pérez in Missouri.
When they set up a street food stand in Los Angeles, they were very excited.
Linares, who entered the United States without authorization at the age of 17 and stayed in the country for more than two decades, had a career that led him to become a chef at a fine dining restaurant.
With his wife, he thought it would be a good idea to set up his own Japanese-style barbecue business and, after securing financing, they embarked on the adventure.
But halfway through, the dream collapsed.
Klein feared that ICE agents would detain her husband and convinced him to voluntarily go to Mexico.
“If something happened to him, I could never forgive myself,” says Klein from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they currently reside. “I was the instigator.”
For Linares, leaving the US, a country that became his home, was very difficult.
So difficult, that he shared a video on social media in which he said goodbye to California with tears.
“Today is my last day here in the United States. After 20 years, it’s time to leave.”
After having lived in Mexico for about a year, they say that the experience has been very challenging.
Although Linares is Mexican, he feels like a foreigner in the country he left behind as a teenager.
The landing was harder than the couple had imagined and they currently continue to face difficulties in finding employment.
They have often regretted the decision they made because they have not been able to generate a permanent source of income, although Klein remains the most convinced that it was necessary to leave.
Linares says that, despite working as an independent chef, offering dinners for small groups, it is not enough. And Klein, who doesn’t speak Spanish, has had trouble getting any remote work.
Despite the difficulties, they do not give up and have a very clear objective: to open a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta.
They lack, however, the initial investment. “We are looking for an investor,” says Klein.
Getting financing is the beginning of what could be called “the Mexican dream” for this couple, because the other, “the American dream,” is already behind them.
click hereto watch more stories from BBC News World.
You can also follow us on YouTube Instagram, TikTok, x, Facebookand in our new whatsapp channelwhere you will find breaking news and our best content.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and activate them.
- What is ICE and what powers does it have, the US agency in charge of the mass deportation of migrants promoted by the Trump government?
- Why Trump chose Minnesota for his largest deployment of immigration agents in the US
