Most weekends, Renee takes her 7-year-old son out to distract him. There are places Alex refuses to go — certain parks, a few ice cream stores — because his father used to take him there. Every place is a memory, Renee said, and her attempt to create new ones only make the absence louder.

At a pool on a recent Sunday, Alex saw kids playing with their fathers and began to cry. A few days later, Alex found his dad’s earring box and fell asleep clasping it, Renee said.

“My heart breaks for him,” Renee said.

Val, Alex’s father and Renee’s partner, is a Mexican national who first migrated to the U.S. when he was 12. Val was apprehended during a check-in in March with the Department of Homeland Security and deported under expedited removal.

Renee asked that The Banner not use the family’s last name out of fear of retribution.

Val had started appearing for check-ins a few years ago after he took a wrong exit while driving and crossed the U.S.-Canada border on his way to Buffalo, New York, the family said. Past check-ins had gone smoothly, and he was able to secure a Social Security number and a work permit.

Now, Renee is left wondering when — or whether — her family will be reunited.

For immigrant families in the U.S. under the Trump administration, anxiety and stress have become a constant.

Families are coping with sudden separations from loved ones, and navigating both the day-to-day consequences at home and the uncertainty of what happens next.

A Baltimore Banner analysis of ICE data, including arrests Jan. 20, as Trump took office, through June 10, shows immigration enforcement officials arrested 1,553 people in Maryland, surpassing the total from all of 2024.

Under the Trump administration, the number of weekly ICE arrests in Maryland rose 165% compared with 2024, which outpaced the 122% rise nationwide, the Banner’s data analysis shows.

These stepped-up efforts have taken a toll on the mental health of immigrant communities, experts say.

Donna Batkis, a bilingual psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker in the Baltimore region, said her office is one of the few safe spaces left for immigrants.

“There is a lot of terror and intense fear,” she said, adding that people are altering their daily routines, avoiding interactions with others and isolating themselves. “You have adrenaline and all the hormones associated with trying to stay alive. It’s worsening their preexisting mental health conditions.”

The constant threat of deportation puts people’s physical and mental health at risk, Batkis said.

“They are caught between a country they can’t go back to and a country they can’t live in,” Batkis said. “They aren’t living or existing. The impact of the cruelty of this calculated reign or terror is endorsed at the highest level of government. It’s hard to reconcile.”

One Ethiopian man The Banner spoke with came to the U.S. at age 10 with his father, who was pursuing a college degree. More than a half-century later, he was informed last month that he will be deported after his withholding from removal status was revoked.

“My heart is racing as I’m saying this,” the 64-year-old said. “My family is suffering extremely. There is loss of sleep, anxiety. My wife has been sick. I can’t see my son. We have to change the way we live. It’s devastating.”

The man, who said he was tipped off that the government intends to deport him, has been in hiding in the Baltimore area. He did not want to use his name for fear of being found. He stays with an alternating network of friends, family members and other supporters.

Usual weekend trips and excursions have been replaced with isolation and caution, he said.

“I’m on my own,” he said. “My co-workers and friends are extremely traumatized. They are trying to support in other ways. They are beyond disbelief that this is happening.”

The stress of the immigration crackdown is particularly difficult on immigrant children.

Dr. Tania Caballero, a general pediatrician who has spent the past decade working with immigrant families in East Baltimore, said most of her patients have been directly impacted by detainment and deportation efforts.

For many, daily life now involves calculating risks: whether to keep a doctor’s appointment or go outside on a hot day could mean an encounter with ICE, the doctor said.

“As a pediatrician it is hard to hear,” Caballero said. “Socialization is important for kids.”

In instances where a family member has been deported or detained, children become more anxious and clingy, Caballero said.

“These are normal responses to a shocking disappearance of someone,” she said.

Deportation causes a different type of trauma than having a loved one in jail or prison.

“You’re able to communicate with them,” she said. “There is an understanding of the time of the separation. When someone is detained or deported there really is no boundary. That stress is really unique.”

Alex has been having outbursts and anger issues, punching walls and slamming doors at home, said his mother, Renee. He doesn’t listen as much in school, and often tells his teachers that he is sad. He stays in his room a lot.

Renee thinks Alex overhears his parents talking on the phone. One time, he told his classmates, who are Hispanic, to be careful because his dad was deported. One little boy became very scared, Renee said. Another time, Alex asked her whether his dad was deported “just because he’s brown.”

Val crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Arizona when he was 12 with his 15-year-old cousin to help his mother, who could not provide for her children. Val settled in Maryland, and as an older teenager, he was deported in 2007 after being arrested for public intoxication.

But he returned years later and built a life in Maryland, meeting Renee through an online dating website about eight years ago, she said. She said she liked how family-oriented he was. He was a present father to his two kids from his first marriage, and was kind to her children from a previous relationship, Renee said.

They didn’t talk about his immigration status for a while, she said. She didn’t know or think to ask, and once it did come up, it wasn’t a memorable conversation.

For years, someone like Val would not be considered a priority for deportation, she said. And in some ways, Val and Renee were banking on that.

“Are they ever going to let him back?” she asks herself. “Will his kids ever see him?”

Her losses, too, have been piling up.

She said she found out she was pregnant a few weeks after Val was apprehended, then had a miscarriage. She said she has been in and out of the hospital for health scares and panic attacks, while juggling a full-time job and some evening work as she cares for her five-person household.

She said the family has talked to Val on WhatsApp, and she is trying to save money to take Alex to Mexico for a visit.

“I try to be positive, but then I still think in the back of my mind that things probably aren’t looking good for him,” she said. “But I also know that I can’t move to Mexico. I have to work. I have my other son.”

And even if she makes enough money and can take her son to Mexico, she said she wonders whether seeing Val for a week and then saying goodbye to him will hurt them all over again.

Baltimore Banner reporter Sapna Bansil contributed to this story.