Jasmine Garst

I kept kind of eyeing the water nervously every time I crossed a bridge.

I was going to check in with a family I wrote about earlier this year for a story about self-deportation.

Now, self-deportation is one of the centerpieces of the Trump administration's immigration policy.

The message from the government has been, take your kids with you.

They can always come back as adults.

But back when we first met, last winter, this mother in Maryland told me very firmly she would under no circumstances self-deport with her children.

My children were born here, she says.

They are American citizens.

This mother asks that I refer to her as Em.

Em and her husband live in a pretty rural area of Maryland, and they are both from Guatemala.

They're also both undocumented.

Em's husband desperately wants to self-support.

He is really out there in the world every day working as a landscaper, and he's quite worried about being detained and taken to a detention center.

And he says she just doesn't understand that it's not the same for her.

She works from home making pinatas and party favors for quinceañeras, weddings, birthdays.

The couple fights about this constantly.

The kids see it, and it gives them bad anxiety.

Back in the winter, when we first met, her youngest daughter, her 7-year-old, first initial L, had a cold.

She kept having to be sent home from school.

The real reason was because she was having panic attacks.