Dania Bautista was getting ready for bed after an overnight nursing shift when she heard sirens. Then her phone rang and her husband, Edgar, told her to come outside.

The 30-year-old said she rushed out the front door of their Bowie home, not even putting on her shoes. Down the street, Edgar’s SUV, their three kids inside, was surrounded by officials wearing vests saying “POLICE.”

Her husband, an immigrant from Honduras with a pending green card application, had been stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement a few hundred feet from their house as he drove the kids to school.

Bautista started recording on her phone as she rushed toward the chaos. Four officers pulled Edgar out of the driver’s seat and jumped on top of him; a fifth officer pointed a Taser toward him as the kids watched, the video shows.

That was almost a month ago. Now Bautista is among the families with the daunting task of raising kids and covering bills while navigating the immigration system on behalf of their detained loved ones.

Since January, ICE arrests of people like Edgar, 32, who asked not to use his last name because he worried that his detainment would impact his business, have surged in Maryland. Within the first six months of the year, more immigration arrests were made in the state than in all of 2024 as the Trump administration amped up deportation efforts across the country. Around 2,000 people in Maryland were detained through the end of July, according to the Deportation Data Project.

“There’s no need for you guys to use that force,” Bautista, a U.S. citizen, yelled repeatedly in the video recorded on Oct. 15. “My kids are in the car.”

As Bautista walked around the car, she filmed the shattered passenger-side window. The officers, some of whom covered their faces, ignored her questions about their identities.

“Leave my dad alone,” one of the kids, all under the age of 10 and crying, screamed as an officer forced Edgar to the ground.

Edgar was handcuffed and placed in a van. Then the officers drove away.

The family’s uncertain future

Soon after Edgar was taken into custody, Bautista called his immigration lawyer to try to bring her husband home.

Since his arrest, Edgar has been shuffled to several different facilities, Bautista said. He spent four days in a short-stay center in Baltimore, which he told Bautista was so packed that some people slept on the bathroom floor.

Then he was transferred to Louisiana, then Arizona, and now he is at a detention center in McFarland, California, she said.

With bills piling up, Bautista is juggling child care, mortgage payments and her husband’s immigration case while working overnight shifts at the Virginia Hospital Center. She said she often feels overwhelmed with worry about how she’ll make ends meet.

“Now I have three whole kids that I have to take care of, and I have to do everything basically because I have no help here,” she said. “I don’t know how I’m going to actually keep paying for all of this.”

Bautista has thought about selling their home, a bright yellow one-floor house with a backyard. She said Edgar, who runs his own excavation business, usually paid the mortgage while she covered other bills.

“We worked so hard for this house,” she said, adding that it’s the first one she’s owned.

Edgar had several active business contracts when he was detained, so Bautista is also helping complete the open projects.

Edgar illegally entered the United States 11 years ago and applied for asylum two years later, Bautista said, which gave him a work permit. His immigration case is pending, records show.

Before his arrest, Edgar had an ankle monitor and regularly checked in with ICE, Bautista said. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on his case.

Court records show that Edgar has a handful of criminal convictions from 2018 and 2019, including for driving while impaired, eluding police and destruction of property. He was detained by immigration for a period of time during those years and later released, said Bautista.

In February, the couple petitioned for him to get permanent resident status, or a green card, because he is married to a U.S. citizen. They’ve been married since 2022 but held off on applying because of expensive legal fees.

Bautista regrets that now.

“Maybe if it would have been sooner, maybe his status would have already been OK,” she said.

Keeping the hope at home

Bautista said the kids have also relied on her for extra support since Edgar’s arrest. They’ve become more sensitive, she said, acting out and crying more than usual.

They once slept in their own rooms, but now sleep with her every night. They fear officers will come back and break in through the windows.

Family and friends stay with her kids while she works, but she had to call out once when no one was available.

She steps into Edgar’s shoes when she can. On a Friday afternoon after school, the kids begged their mom to take them to a nearby park to play soccer, just like her husband used to do while she cooked dinner. When she gave in, the kids cheered.

When her husband was arrested, Bautista was also two months into the process of becoming a U.S. Army nurse. She had spoken with recruiters and was gearing up to take the entrance exam. Not having her husband to help around the house has slowed her timeline.

Simultaneously, Bautista said, she feels disillusioned by the immigration system in the United States and how it has treated her family.

“I’ve never thought that the system can be so broken, to be honest,” she said. “I never thought that the U.S. was this way.”

Bautista has faith that Edgar will emerge from detention and soon gain a green card. His case was moved from Virginia to California, where he is detained, and his next hearing is in January.

If Edgar is deported, Bautista said she is willing to move to Honduras.

“I mean, what else can I do?”