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Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents visited a Venezuelan family living on the southwest side earlier this week, saying they were there to ensure that children staying in the home weren’t being trafficked.

Tucson Spotlight was at the home Tuesday afternoon, as Yoleidy and Juan waited anxiously in their living room. Three thick packages containing all the documentation for three of their four children who entered the U.S. and were labeled as unaccompanied minors were placed neatly on their dining table.

Though the children had entered with their aunt, they were separated upon entry.

Yoleidy and Juan said their worst fear had been getting their children taken away from them, despite the family being under Temporary Protected Status and following all the necessary protocols to legally remain in the country.

Five officers had visited the residence the day before, but Juan was the only one home. Yoleidy was at work, and the kids were in school. The officers left, saying they would return the next day, but not before asking Juan to show them the rooms where the kids slept.

He said the three agents were inside his home for about 30 minutes before leaving, while two others searched the property outside.

“At the time, it seemed strange to us because we are all fine, and we have all our papers in order. It seemed off from the moment they knocked on the door; it didn't seem normal to me,” Juan said in Spanish. “I opened the door because we are all here legally, we have nothing to hide.”

Juan and Yoleidy entered the U.S. with one of their four children in August 2022, seeking asylum through the CBP One app. They left Venezuela, fleeing violence, corruption, and scarcity, and crossed the Darien Gap, Central America, and Mexico to get to the United States.

Their three other kids crossed into the U.S. in November 2023 with an aunt, but were separated at the time of entry and identified as unaccompanied minors.

They spent time in a shelter for unaccompanied minors run by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement before the family was able to begin a two-month family reunification process.

So when agents with ICE, a division of the Department of Homeland Security that investigates trafficking cases, came knocking on their door on Monday asking about their kids, the couple was confused and scared.

“We've been doing everything the right way,” Yoleidy said in Spanish. “We have been working legally, even now, we are going to pay our first tax season! Everything is in order.”

After the visit, Yoleidy reached out to an organizer, who connected her to the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a human rights organization that supports immigrants regardless of their legal status.

The group has been creating avenues of support for people in situations like theirs, providing them with observers, accompaniment, and, in cases like this one, a lawyer.

Derechos Humanos connected the couple with Luis Campos, director of the Alliance of Idaho, who acted as an intermediary during Tuesday’s confrontation. The alliance represents undocumented people, focusing on those seeking asylum.

Campos said ICE making an appointment to visit a family is something he’d never seen before, but he thinks the involvement of the kids had something to do with their less aggressive approach. Two unmarked cars slowed as they got closer to the house, perhaps in response to the large number of people present to witness the encounter.

Campos stood just outside of Juan and Yoleidy’s fence, while the family waited inside, acting as a legal shield.

“You can see when they first approached, they weren’t expecting us,” he said. “They were trying to figure out how they were going to handle the audience, the press, my presence, and the rest of it. It makes a difference.”

When two agents approached the house, Campos told them that they could not enter the property without a signed judicial warrant. The agents did not produce a warrant, talking outside with Campos for about five minutes before they said they wanted to see and speak to the kids.

“They did indicate that there were concerns and they wanted to ensure that the children’s welfare was being taken care of and that they weren’t being trafficked or anything like that,” Campos said.

The agents talked to the kids on the porch. One of the children, Carlitos, took on a spokesperson role for his brothers, saying that they were a “good family.” He later told Tucson Spotlight that he was scared of being sent back to Venezuela. At just 10 years old, Carlitos uses his TikTok account to bring awareness to his situation and migration to the U.S. – he’s amassed over 26,000 followers.

Campos said the interaction was non-confrontational and that the agents were there on orders from Homeland Security Investigations, interested in the well being of the kids.

“There are reporting requirements any time children come (unaccompanied), it's not only DHS but also Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement,” Campos said. "In this case, the Office of Refugee Resettlement had requested that Homeland Security look into the family.”

The bigger picture

The encounter comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s direction to immigration agents to track down thousands of children who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors through the “Unaccompanied Alien Children Joint Initiative.”

An internal memo to ICE agents said the initiative aimed to ensure that children are not victims of human trafficking or other forms of exploitation, the same reason DHS agents provided Campos for their visit on Tuesday.

“This new protocol is a directive for how DHS or ICE operates in the field,” said Allan Colbern, founding director of the U.S. Immigration & Citizenship Lab and a professor at Arizona State University. “Under federal immigration laws, they do have the power to detain and to enforce and to even potentially go through deportation proceedings, even if it's an unaccompanied child.”

In the southwest, more than 400,000 unaccompanied children have entered since 2022. This year alone, there have been over 23,000 unaccompanied children, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Their futures hang in a delicate balance.

Know Your Rights

There have been dozens of “Know Your Rights” sessions in Southern Arizona since November’s election, but when faced with the reality, many people panic and forget all they learned in the training. Here are the basics:

• Don’t open the door. ICE agents cannot enter a private residence without a judicial warrant.

“If you open the door, or if you allow them to enter, even if the attorney is there and allows them to enter, then they do have authority to detain even children or their sponsors if they are undocumented,” Colbern said. “They do have legal authority to do that once they are granted entry into a private residence.”

Local print shop the Gloo Factory has printed hundreds of signs and red “Know Your Rights” cards people can put up in their home to avoid interacting at all. 

• Look at documentation and make sure that any search warrant is signed by a judge. Many ICE agents use administrative warrants that are not signed as a tactic to gain access into a person’s home.
• Remain silent and do not answer any questions, and do not sign any papers without a lawyer present.
• If you witness raids, prolonged traffic stops, or interactions with ICE, contact Derechos Humanos’ Community Rapid Response Team at (520) 221-4077. They’ll send out an observer to document the situation and make sure no rights are being violated.
• If you see an ICE interaction somewhere, use this Padlet to map it out and let others in your community know where ICE is most active. Derechos Humanos has keychain QR codes for easy on-the-go access.

“If someone who has papers gets scared, imagine those who don’t (have papers) watching on television everything they are doing with the children, returning them unaccompanied,” Maru Carrasco, an organizer with Derechos Humanos, said in Spanish.

She is certain that without the lawyer and press present, the outcome of Juan and Yoleidy’s situation would have been very different.

The family has sought two processes that allow them to stay in the country legally and have attended every court date. They are on Temporary Protected Status, but initially came to the U.S. through the asylum-seeking process. Once TPS ends on April 7, they will move back to the asylum-seeking process and continue trying to find a way to stay safely in this country. Despite their efforts to do it legally, they are scared that they may be separated from their children and deported.

“Get informed, seek support, seek help, go to support seminars so that you are very well informed and know your rights,” Yoleidy said. “Because the truth is that by not knowing, yesterday we could have made a mistake, so report it, seek help.”

Derechos Humanos is hosting an Emotional Support Forum tomorrow, Saturday, March 1, from 12-2 p.m. at the Our Lady of Fatima Parish, 1950 W Irvington Pl. The event is free and will be in Spanish. You can also watch the event on Facebook Live.

Susan Barnett is Deputy Editor of Tucson Spotlight and a graduate student at the University of Arizona. She previously worked for La Estrella de Tucson. Contact her at susan@tucsonspotlight.org.

Tucson Spotlight is a community-based newsroom that provides paid opportunities for students and rising journalists in Southern Arizona. Please support our work with a paid subscription.