The bell rang at Logan Elementary School on Chicago’s Northwest Side and 12-year-old Delila waited outside for her father to pick her up as usual.
She searched the crowd, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. Instead, “I found the landlord’s husband,” the seventh grader said.
The landlord’s husband, along with Delila’s grandfather, broke the news that immigration agents had arrested her dad. Pablo Blancas-Gomez — Delila’s sole parent — had been arrested by federal immigration authorities during a raid earlier that day on Chicago’s North Side.
The girl grew quiet for a second. Then she burst into tears.
Usually she had warned her father about immigration agents before he went to work on construction sites.
“That one day he was taken, that day we didn’t say anything,” Delila said from her new home with her half-sister, Kassandra Ramirez. She looked down toward the table. “Can I get a second chance?” she choked out.
Delila has been living with her sister Kassandra Ramirez since her father, her sole parent, was taken in an immigration raid on Oct. 21, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
Delila has not seen her father since his Oct. 21 arrest while working on a home improvement project in the West Ridge neighborhood. The 45-year-old remains in custody at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility more than 1,500 miles away in El Paso, Texas. His hearing is scheduled for Dec. 2.
Their separation illustrates a tragic consequence of the Trump administration’s recent immigration crackdown: Children have been left behind after a parent is detained or deported, often without a formal plan for their care or process for reuniting with their mothers and fathers.
Delila’s father has been her primary caretaker since her mom died in 2023. Now her half-sister, Ramirez, has assumed all the responsibilities of a parent overnight. The 32-year-old is still trying to figure out the logistics of caretaking, from balancing school drop-offs and pickups while working a full-time job, to the finances of providing for a child.
“Pablo was taking care of her, that’s her dad,” she said. “That’s something I didn’t plan.”
Immigration experts say the federal government has no comprehensive system to track minors who are separated from their parents upon detention or deportation.
Some of these children have been taken in by relatives or trusted caretakers. Others could end up in foster care.
All undergo the upheaval and trauma of abrupt separation from their primary caregivers.
The result is a new nationwide “family separation crisis,” said Kelly Albinak Kribs of The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.
“Hundreds, if not thousands, of families are being torn apart,” which will have a long-lasting and rippling effect on children and families, said Kribs, who works with immigrant families involved in the state welfare system in Illinois and across the country.
She drew parallels to the mass family separations during President Donald Trump’s first term spurred by theadministration’s so-called “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, when nearly 5,000 children were forcibly separated from their families by the United States government at the southern border between 2017 and 2021.
Roughly 1,360 of those children still have not been reunited with their parents, according to a December 2024 Human Rights Watch report.
Today, it’s unclear exactly how many minors have been separated from a parent or guardian in the Chicago area and across the country amid the administration’s roving immigration enforcement.
Most recently, U.S. Border Patrol was in North Carolina after pulling back on its Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, with agents planning to mobilize in New Orleans next, according to reports.
Amid its operations, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in an email that ICE “does not separate families.”
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or if they would like ICE (to) place the children with a safe person the parent designates,” she said. “This is consistent with (the) past administration’s immigration enforcement.”
She added that parents in this situation also have the option of self-deportation.
The agency did not say whether it tracked cases of family separations or how many children have been left stranded due to parental detention or deportation.
A July 2025 ICE policy states that when a parent is detained the agency “should, to the extent operationally feasible, facilitate the (detainee’s) efforts to make arrangements” for their minor children.
The directive also says agency’s enforcement actions should not “unnecessarily infringe upon the legal parental guardianship rights and obligations” of parents and legal guardians who are primary caretakers of minors in the United States.
Yet Illinois officials have repeatedly argued that this isn’t the case in practice.
During a September press conference, Gov. JB Pritzker condemned the “aggressive tactics” of federal immigration officials in the Chicago area, including “leaving children stranded after their parents were arrested.”
News reports tell the stories of many minors like Delila who have been kept from their parents due to immigration enforcement, chronicling the stress, fear, mental health strain and anguish such separations can inflict on families.
A CNN report in September found more than 100 U.S. citizen children — ranging from babies to teens — were left parentless after immigration enforcement officials detained their mothers and fathers.
The case of a recently deported 56-year-old widower, single parent and sole caretaker for four U.S. citizen children was highlighted last month in a sweeping federal lawsuit alleging inhumane and unsafe conditions at the ICE holding facility in west suburban Broadview.
“His children, who are already grieving the loss of their mother from earlier this year, now must process the sudden loss of their father,” the lawsuit said.
A Tribune story in June recounted the anguish of a 6-year-old girl whose mother was detained by ICE outside an office in downtown Chicago during what was supposed to be a routine check-in. The child — who was left behind without a guardian or legal path for reunification — couldn’t understand why her mom had suddenly vanished and wasn’t in the audience during her kindergarten graduation.
Camerino Gomez with his partner’s daughter, Gabriela Pindea, 7, outside their home in Chicago on June 11, 2025, after her kindergarten graduation. Gabriela’s mom Wendy was detained by ICE in June. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Now, more immigrant families locally and across the nation are scrambling to find information about temporary guardianship arrangements to transfer custody of their children to a designated person in the case of an emergency like detention or deportation.
Rebekah Rashidfarokhi of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services has been inundated with requests for training or information about short-term guardianship forms.
She used to receive two or three calls about these forms a year. Now she gets two or three calls a day.
“We are getting exponentially larger numbers of calls and requests, more than I can really accommodate,” said Rashidfarokhi, director of guardianship and immigration programs for children.
Delila said she has difficulty sleeping. First she lost her mom. Now she fears she might lose her father as well.
“I lost my best friend,” Delila said. “He’s my dad, but he’s my best friend too.”
Delila is strong, but her dad is everything to her; their father-daughter bond has grown significantly since her mother died two years ago, Ramirez said. Her sister receives support from her teachers at school and has had counseling.
About two days after Blancas-Gomez was arrested, the dad and daughter spoke over the phone.
The call lasted around two minutes.
She asked him where he was; he indicated he was at the ICE facility in Broadview at the time.
Then his voice cracked, she recalled.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” Delila replied.
‘Second chance’
Delila and her dad used to eat spaghetti covered in his special sauce made of mayo and ketchup.
They would play Pac-Man and go for rides together in his red work truck, Delila recalled.
It was the same vehicle that was left on the side of the road with the key still in the ignition when immigration enforcement took Blancas-Gomez while he was working at home on the day of the raid. At least 12 people were taken in the sweep.
The office of the 40th Ward was notified of immigration enforcement activity in the area. Ald. Andre Vasquez and his chief of staff, Cat Sharp, drove to the site and found the abandoned truck.
Video footage of the scene reviewed by the Tribune showed Blancas-Gomez wearing a black beanie next to his red truck, his hands behind his back.
Pablo Blancas-Gomez was picked up by federal immigration agents Oct. 21, 2025, on Chicago’s North Side. (social media)
“It’s hard to explain unless you’re going through it,” recalled Ramirez, who shared a mother with Delila and has known Blancas-Gomez for many years. “Like in the movies, everything just stops and it just sounds like a buzzing in your ears.”
Department of Homeland Security officials referred to Blancas-Gomez as “a violent criminal illegal alien from Mexico” in the agency’s statement to the Tribune.
“His rap sheet includes multiple arrests for domestic battery, theft, and criminal property damage,” McLaughlin said, adding that Blancas-Gomez had been removed from the United States three times previously before reentering the country a fourth time, which is a felony.
Cook County court records show Blancas-Gomez was charged with domestic violence and criminal property damage in 2019, although the case was dropped shortly afterward. He also was found not guilty in a labor theft case that started in 2015.
The day Blancas-Gomez was taken, at least a dozen people were detained by immigration agents in different locations, Sharp said.
Multiple children have reached out about their parents being taken, she added.
“That piece especially has been the most heartbreaking,” she said. “In some instances, we’ve heard of neighbors just taking in kids temporarily.”
In a perfect world, vulnerable families should preemptively identify a caretaker in case of possible detention or deportation, which can be done by filing a short-term guardianship form, said Rashidfarokhi of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services.
In the absence of that form, children can be taken in by a relative or loved one who cares for them adequately, she said. When no one steps in or the caretaker does not take adequate care of them, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services might become involved.
“Only when necessary and all other options are explored, the State of Illinois can seek to have a legal guardian appointed to ensure that a youth without an adult caregiver is provided proper care and to consent to legal, medical and educational matters on the youth’s behalf,” states a DCFS brochure on support for families facing immigration challenges.
Onward Neighborhood House is one of many local organizations that have contacted Chicago Volunteer Legal Services for workshops on short-term guardianship forms this year.
Nearly 200 people have attended these workshops or met with case managers since then, said Jonathan Barrera, coordinator at the Illinois Welcoming Center, which is affiliated with Onward Neighborhood House.
Before January, Barrera had never even heard of short-term guardianships. Now he knows of dozens of families that have sought case managers to set one up.
Others have opted to self-deport, taking their children with them to the country they once fled, due to fears of being detained by federal authorities and potentially sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, he said.
“That’s how bad the fear is,” Barrera said.
More than 250 Venezuelans expelled from the United States and sent to that prison earlier this year under the Trump administration have endured torture and systematic human rights violations there, according a report released earlier this month by Human Rights Watch and the human rights organization Cristosal.
Long-term consequences
At home on a recent afternoon, Delila watched a video her father sent her before his detainment and giggled at her phone.
“It’s just Pablo being Pablo,” Ramirez said, commenting on the footage Blancas-Gomez had texted his daughter sometime last month.
The video clip is Delila’s last reminder of what life was like when her family was intact.
Now she doesn’t know if her father will ever be able to return to their Chicago home.
“I know my dad’s alive but it still feels like he’s gone,” Ramirez recalled Delila telling her.
Blancas-Gomez has been living in the United States for nearly two decades, running his own business as a repairman and mechanic.
He married the mother of Delila and Ramirez, who was a U.S. citizen, and had been working toward obtaining his citizenship, Ramirez said. But when his wife died and he took on sole parenting responsibilities, that process went uncompleted, she said.
Ramirez is trying to be optimistic about the outcome without getting her, and Delila’s, hopes up.
Delila, age 12, has been living with her sister since her father was taken in an immigration raid on Oct. 21, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
Family separation due to immigration enforcement can take many different forms under the current administration, said Dr. C. Nicholas Cuneo, assistant professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and executive director of HEAL Refugee Health and Asylum Collaborative.
“What I’ve encountered are families who have had one parent who has been detained and I’ve seen the impact that has had on other family members,” he said. “I’ve also seen families who are affected by vulnerable immigration or unstable immigration status — asylum pending even. They are living in fear and that is impacting the child.”
He has also seen cases where a parent wonders if they should send their U.S. citizen children to live in the care of relatives in their home country, to avoid forcible separation.
A family’s planning for emergency detention or deportation becomes even more complicated when children have special health needs or require complex medical care, especially if the primary caregiver is the only person who has the training and knowledge to adequately care for those conditions, he added.
“So the threat of detention for that primary caregiver can have potentially devastating consequences for that child if there’s nobody else who’s been trained or designated as an alternative guardian,” he said.
The ongoing family separation crisis in many ways mirrors the “zero-tolerance” era of the first Trump administration, said Kribs of The Young Center.
Kribs described the “profound and traumatic impact” this policy has had on families.
“Parents and children are living through the same separation today, every day,” though these separations are now unfolding inside the country instead of at the border, Kribs said.
Research shows children who endure family separation as a result of immigration enforcement often suffer from greater depression and anxiety symptoms as well as behavioral problems and difficulty concentrating in school, said Jodi Berger Cardoso, professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.
Other factors can compound that trauma including having a parent or caregiver detained in the presence of the child or prior exposure to traumatic events, she said.
Sometimes in order to reunite with deported parents, children are forced to move to another country they’ve never lived in, and there can be negative social and emotional consequences to this upheaval as well, Cardoso said.
“When you expose children to ongoing stress and trauma during critical periods of development like childhood and adolescence, it increases their vulnerability for mental health problems in the present but also across the life cycle,” she said. “So we’re changing trajectories possibly of children’s lives based on the policy decisions we’re making now.”