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As President Donald Trump began to act on his promise of mass deportations, a concerned citizens group in Ogden wanted to do more than just protest. They decided to help immigrants without legal status prepare for a worst-case scenario.
Ogden United with Immigrants was formed in 2025 to help families complete legal documents to hire an immigration attorney and designate a power of attorney for themselves and their children.
“We just want families to be ready so their children stay with someone that they trust and that someone will help them to be reunited at the end,” said volunteer Lissette Diaz.
The group hasn’t seen any families where both parents have been detained, Diaz said, but they have worked with clients after one parent was. It’s about being prepared for any situation where the parents and kids are separated.
They recommend parents give power of attorney to someone with legal status whom they trust and would feel comfortable advocating for the child, said Mary Hall, another volunteer.
“Let's say the child was going to be put into a foster care situation, or DCFS is called, then this person can step forward and say, ‘No, I have been named to act on the parents’ behalf,” she said.
The group has helped 10 families so far at their clinics, which began in April, and handed out many more packets with documents and information, Hall said.
Families have thanked Diaz for the group’s help.
“They know now that they have one tool to help them go through these type of situations if it is needed,” she said.
This work in Utah isn’t limited to Ogden; the group Voces de la Comunidad Utah also offers similar help with preparedness.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy guides the apprehension and detention of parents or caretakers of minor children, whether or not those children have legal status in the U.S. Though on its website, ICE stipulates that the policy could change at any time and does not provide legal rights.
Still, the directive maintains that ICE officials should ask about parental status when they first encounter someone and should allow a parent or guardian to make arrangements for their kids before being taken into custody.
Detention space for families is limited. In Utah, which doesn’t have an operational detention center at this time, ICE detainees are often placed in hold rooms and at county jails.
“Our county jails are not equipped to handle families, and so they really can't take children into custody and hold them in ICE custody in Utah,” said Dan Black, an immigration attorney in Ogden.
In a recent case of his, a mother and father were pulled over. The father ended up in ICE custody in California, but the mother was released and referred to immigration court because they have minor children at home, he said.
In Black’s view, high-profile cases like that of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old swept up in the administration’s Minnesota enforcement, are not the norm, but are designed to drum up fear.
“It creates the fear and the misconception that I believe this administration is wanting the Latino and the immigrant community to have so that they either self-deport or, you know, are afraid to seek any kind of a benefit,” he said.
Like Diaz with Ogden United with Immigrants, Black hasn’t heard of any cases in Utah where both parents of minor children were detained, though he does know of cases in other states.
“I think that ICE does everything they can to avoid picking up both parents, and if they do, it was either because of the criminal history of both parents that made detention mandatory, or they were just not aware that there were minor children that depended on them,” he said.
But Zain Lakhani, director of migrant rights and justice at the nonprofit Women’s Refugee Commission, said ICE often violates its own policy.
While in Honduras to interview recent deportees, her organization met parents who said they told ICE they had children and were ignored or denied the opportunity to contact them. One man whose wife had already been detained told agents his child was at home and asked to call the babysitter and ask her to stay, Lakhani said.
“He was begging just for the chance to make that phone call. It was denied to him, and he was pulled into detention.”
She said the babysitter ended up staying with the child for almost two weeks.
Violations like this are happening across the U.S., Lakhani said, not just in border states or places with high-profile ICE surges.
If both parents are detained and there’s no one else in line to care for the children, citizen kids are typically transferred to state custody, while noncitizen children are handled by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Despite the uncertainty of how ICE will treat parents, Lakhani sees planning as a good idea. The Women’s Refugee Commission has a lengthy toolkit for parents who are detained or deported.
“It can be so violent and so quick and so fast when it happens,” Lakhani said. “And there isn't a lot of that warning or planning time that there used to be.”
If parents want to take their children with them if they’re deported, she recommends finding out what documents the children will need to fly and designating a trusted adult to travel with them, if needed. If the parents would rather their kids stay with a trusted guardian in the U.S., she recommends setting up power of attorney or guardianship.
“The one piece of universal advice is ‘make a plan and make it now.’”
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
