Chapter 1: What recent changes have occurred in immigration policy under President Trump?
I'm Katrin Benhold, host of The World, a daily newsletter from The New York Times. I spent 20 years reporting from more than a dozen countries, and it occurred to me one day, what kind of newsletter would I like to read? I don't live in the U.S. I want something especially for a global audience. The World is just that.
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All this week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year, listening back and hearing what's happened in the time since they first ran. Today, we return to the subject of President Trump's broad and historic crackdown on immigration. To reach his promised deportation numbers, Trump increasingly sought to deport those without a criminal record, those who came to the U.S.
decades ago and who have established lives, careers, and family in this country. Daily producer Jessica Chung told the story of one such man who was detained this year through the eyes of his daughter. It's Tuesday, December 30th.
So I was in class. I was about to turn in all my work to the teacher. So I was already starting to pack up my things slowly. And I got a call from my mom. She seemed very down. And she was like, it's like when you hear somebody, they're trying not to cry, but like they're really like holding it in. And I could hear in her voice. And that's when I started to get a little bit worried.
She told me that like your father got detained. And it's just like, you just start envisioning the worst. Like he's in this terrible place. This is a hardworking man. No criminal record. Like you guys just took him.
I first spoke to Isla back in February. This was a month into the Trump administration, which had promised quick and mass deportations. I was calling immigration lawyers around the country, trying to get a sense of who exactly was getting targeted for deportation and how ICE was fining them. And that's when a lawyer called me back, saying you got to talk to Isla. Hello. Hi. Hi.
So this is Jessica. This is Ayla. She's Fabrizio's 20-year-old daughter. Okay, great. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. My name is Ayla Gomez. Right now, Ayla's a sophomore at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Massachusetts, where she's studying architecture and interior design.
She was raised in a town called Saugus, just outside Boston, where days before we had talked, her dad was detained by ICE officers. Tell me a little bit about your dad. What is his name? How old is he and what does he do?
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Chapter 2: How does the story of a detained migrant illustrate the impact of these policies?
And then that's when he decided that he was ready to open his company and start start creating a life for himself and our family. And is your sense that he loves his job? Yes. My dad is actually very passionate for his job. You would think he wouldn't be because you're constantly going up a ladder. It's so cold since we live in Massachusetts. And it's really a hard job.
Even though he wasn't fluent in English, he had this way of connecting with people.
My dad, he's always talked to his clients like he knew them for so long. I don't know how he talks to them, like everybody understands him.
For as long as she can remember, Isla's wanted to be just like him.
As a little kid, I was like my dad's kind of tomboy. I'd always buy construction, little kids kit, and I would always go around the house with like plastic toys. Me and my dad are the type of person where we take something that is not good and we reform it. When something's not designed properly, it just feels down. And when you reform it, it brings another life.
It sounds like you and your dad shared a special bond over your love of building things.
Yes. I always wanted to work with my dad, which is why I went to college for architecture and interior design. So eventually in the future, I could work with my dad's company.
Isla says her dream is that her dad's company becomes a family company with her.
His dream was always for us to go to college and pursue something that we have passion for because they weren't able to choose their own path. You're not born saying, I'm going to clean toilets. I'm going to be a contractor. You're born thinking like, I want to be a businesswoman. I want to have my own company. I want to have my own home.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Isla face when her father was detained?
Like, there's—don't worry. As much as, obviously, when I'm alone, you always have that thought in the back of your mind, like, what am I going to do? What if things go down?
Fabrizio had no criminal record, and he didn't want to hide from law enforcement. He wanted to do things the right way. He's had a pending application for a visa. In the meantime, he's been checking in with ICE. He's been doing that for 12 years. In February, just one month after Trump's inauguration, he was due for another check-in.
So he just shows up for his yearly check-in and you go there, you represent yourself, talk about whatever is being asked. And that was about it.
And so her dad shows up to his check-in like he always does. And it was soon after that, that her mom called her in class, notifying Isla that her dad had been detained.
After I was hyperventilating, I felt like my heart just left my chest. I think about him being there. I think about him being in this close-up space. So I worry a lot at night. Like, what if he's panicking and we don't know? What if he's holding strong, but he's actually having the hardest time in his life? Like, that's what constantly replays in my head.
So it just felt like my whole heart got ripped out of my chest because I never got to really say a proper goodbye, like, I'll see you later.
We'll be right back. My name is Carlos Prieto, and I'm one of the people that helped make The Daily. As part of our reporting on immigration, we heard from this woman crossing one of the most dangerous stretches of land on the whole planet to get to the United States. I knew that she was from Venezuela, which is where I'm also from.
But what I found out is that not only was she from the same city that I grew up in, but she was also from the same neighborhood. She was describing parks and plazas and streets where I spent a lot of my childhood. She was a woman that I might have encountered at some point in my life.
It made me feel an extra responsibility to find a way for our listeners to feel like they understood her and her story. What makes The Daily special is that we try to understand every story with that level of closeness so that our listeners can really connect with the humans in the middle of a news event.
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Chapter 4: How did Isla's father's detention affect their family dynamics?
That's been my little ideal dream since February 26th. Just me getting that call of being told, go pick up your dad. And all I could think of is me just like parking my car, getting out my car. He's standing outside, like quite literally the same exact person he left, like in his work clothes, just the way he is with his face, like his regular face.
Like no time had passed.
No, like literally no time has passed, but it feels like life spent upside down.
Yeah.
And just hugging my dad and all I could literally do is cry, like cry my literal heart out. Like everything that I've been holding in, like within these two months, that's exactly how I see. It just feels like it's going to happen and it's all I think about is, That's all I can envision, like, over and over again, every single day that I wake up. And it's just me.
Like, it's not like my mom's around, my sister's around. It's just, like, me and my dad.
Isla never got the call to pick up her dad. Instead, a few days after we had talked, she received news that her dad had been deported from the U.S. to Brazil. So Isla packed a small suitcase for herself and a bigger one for her dad, and she booked a ticket for one to Brazil. And on Tuesday morning, at the arrivals terminal in Belo Horizonte Airport, Isla finally got to be with her dad.
After the break, senior producer Jessica Chung on what happened after Isla reunited with her father.
Once you go through all the tunnel and everything, it's literally like a storefront door, like a sliding door. It just slides in like there behind that door. And I literally see him like standing in front of the door. I gave him a big hug. Like I missed him so much. It was so shocking. It's just like, what am I doing in Brazil?
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