Mark, 17, said he used to love school. He took advanced placement classes, had a girlfriend and a tight-knit group of friends. But everything unraveled after his father, a 57-year-old contracting business owner, was picked up by ICE officers while shopping for supplies at a Home Depot in Montgomery County just before Christmas 2025.
“It didn’t matter to the immigration system that Marco had lived in the US for nearly 40 years, that he owned a contracting business in Maryland, that he had a 17-year-old son and 35-year-old daughter who are both US citizens,” according to the family. “It didn’t seem to matter,” Mark told the Guardian, “that Marco’s biggest dream had been to see his son graduate.”
Marco had been avoiding Home Depot because he knew immigration agents were conducting raids there, he said, but could not find the part he needed for a project elsewhere. After his arrest, he was held first at a federal building in Baltimore and then transferred within a week to a detention center in Mississippi.
“It was a nightmare,” said Mark’s mother, Rosie, who works at Burger King.
Marco was detained for three months. During that time, he lost 30 pounds, struggled to eat the poor-quality food, and watched fellow detainees crying and screaming through the night, he said.
Mark’s half-sister, who had been estranged from their father for years, rushed in to help coordinate with the family’s lawyer. Despite documentation that Marco had been in the U.S. for 37 years, an immigration judge ordered his removal.
“My dad had always wanted to lose some weight — but not like this,” Mark said.
With his father in detention, Mark grew increasingly stressed and depressed. He had trouble getting out of bed, began skipping classes, and dropped out of an AP course. In math class, his grade dipped to an “E” — he was failing.
“He feels helpless,” Rosie said.
Mark and Rosie began eating through savings. Marco had covered rent, utilities and groceries; Rosie’s paycheck covered extras. Suddenly they had to manage on a single Burger King wage.
“Separation in that way breaks our hearts,” Rosie said. “We are suffering in every aspect. I just never thought this would happen, that they’d tear us apart like this.”
Mark worried ICE would arrest his mother too. He insisted on doing all the groceries and errands so she could stay home safe. He could hear her crying in her room.
Marco, in detention, sensed his son’s depression. “I understood why,” he said. “Every night I would read the Bible before going to bed. And I would say: ‘My biggest wish is for Mark to graduate from high school.’”
Just before his deportation, Marco wrote Mark a single-page letter, filled front and back, telling him to take care of his mother and his girlfriend, to exercise, to keep learning, and to find a good job as an electrician.
Mark asked his math teacher for extra work to bring his grades up. He began taking shifts at Walmart to help pay the bills. The Montgomery County Immigrant Rights Collective, a local mutual aid group, also fundraised to support the family.
Marco was deported to El Salvador in March — a country he and his parents had left when he was three years old to move to Mexico. He started working odd jobs almost immediately there, reluctant to burden Rosie and Mark further. Eventually he made his way to Mexico, where his parents and brother live.
Marco watched his son’s graduation ceremony on a livestream from Aguascalientes, Mexico.
“I was very happy. A little sad that I couldn’t be present,” he said.
Mark plans to attend community college and wants to become a civil or mechanical engineer. He is trying to save enough to visit his father in Mexico in August.
“I’m not sure if I’ll make it because flights are expensive,” he said. But if he goes, he plans to bring his cap and gown so they can take graduation photos together.
“And we can recreate the graduation for him.”
The Guardian is using only first names to protect the family’s privacy and safety.