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Aside from closing the border, the president-elect has promised mass deportations of people already in the United States, and that promise would affect a lot of United States citizens. An immigration nonprofit estimates that more than 11 million citizens live in a household that includes someone without legal status, and the threat of deportation has led to some hard family talks. NPR's Jasmine Garsd has been listening.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Non-English language spoken).
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: It's almost bedtime. In Long Island, New York, Angel Reyes Rivas is trying to get his toddlers to simmer down. As he goes through the universal parent routine - begging and issuing warnings - he tells me when they get time alone, he and his wife have been having a terrifying conversation - what to do if one of them gets deported. He's from Peru. She's from Colombia.
ANGEL REYES RIVAS: I can tell you from firsthand experience that a deportation - it's, like, the worst thing that could happen to your family. I wouldn't want my kids going through something like that 'cause it's difficult.
GARSD: He knows. When Reyes was 19, his own mother got deported. It was during the Obama years. Suddenly, he was a teenager in charge of a family. No one had ever told him what to do if this happened. These days, Reyes is an immigration advocate. He says he's been warning immigrant communities.
REYES: Part 2 of the Trump administration - it's going to be something that we haven't seen before. It's like, get to know your rights. You know, get ready. Talk to your kids. Look into, you know, how you're going to handle being detained, being deported.
GARSD: Reyes himself has DACA, a protection for people brought to the U.S. as undocumented children. Under a Trump administration, that program could end. His wife is undocumented. Their kids, both toddlers, were born in the U.S. He says he can't bring himself to explain it to them.
REYES: No. Like, I don't want to put in their heads that they're going to separate me from you, right? I mean, who wants to have that conversation with their kids, right?
GARSD: For many mixed-status families, this conversation is nothing new. Carolina Saavedra says when she was 8 years old, her parents bought her and her siblings a piece of gold jewelry. And they explained what the kids should do if their parents got deported.
CAROLINA SAAVEDRA: You take that piece of jewelry and you sell it. And you find a church, and you ask for help there.
GARSD: Saavedra was born in the U.S. She's a citizen. Her parents are undocumented, originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. They were so worried, they would bake the instructions into her bedtime stories. She still knows the story by heart.
SAAVEDRA: Long ago, there was a little girl and her mom. And the bad guys were coming, and the daughter sold the piece of jewelry that they had. They made it to the next safe land, and they lived happily ever after.
GARSD: The Saavedras own this restaurant. It's called La Morada. For 15 years, it's been a hub of the community, doubling as a mutual aid for neighbors and recently arrived migrants. And yet, one thing never budges. They've been undocumented for over three decades, with no path to legalization. As lunch hour rush dies down, mom, Natalia Mendez, sits down with me. Is she nervous about the incoming Trump administration?
NATALIA MENDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: She tells me an anecdote about this one time, when she first arrived, there was a raid at the factory she worked in. She escaped through a laundry chute. This happened several times back in the '90s, during Clinton. There is nothing new under this sun, she says, before heading back to her kitchen. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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