One family’s harrowing escape to the US – and the Trump government’s relentless efforts to deport them back

Oscar, a Honduran asylum seeker, was deported by the Trump administration three weeks ago and is now in hiding in Honduras, fearing for his life after fleeing the country with his wife Ana and two children in 2023. US immigration officials detained Oscar 11 days before his family's scheduled asylum hearing, moved him from Maryland to a Louisiana detention center, then severed his asylum case from his family's and ultimately deported him to Honduras. Oscar's wife and children remain safe in the US while he hides at a secret location, only visiting his mother at night and rarely leaving his lodging. According to Columbia Law School's Immigrants' Rights Clinic director Elora Mukherjee, it is "extraordinarily difficult" for deported individuals to secure permission to return to the US under the current administration.