A deportation separated a Fort Worth family. How are they coping?
A month after being deported to Mexico, Jesus Vazquez, a 25-year-old Fort Worth father, is adjusting to life in a country he never knew while trying to reunite with the family he left behind in the U.S.
In early March, Vazquez was deported after three months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. He had come to the U.S. from Mexico as a baby but never received permanent citizenship. Vazquez was arrested in November during a routine ICE check-in.
On the day of his deportation, Vazquez said he was put in a van with other detainees and driven from a detention center in Laredo to the border. An ICE official walked them halfway across a bridge connecting the U.S. and Mexico, then told them good luck, Vazquez said.
From Nuevo Laredo, Vazquez took a bus to Monterrey, then he flew deeper into the country where he’s now living with a half-sister. His wife, Cassidy Vazquez, asked the Star-Telegram not to identify where her husband is for fear he’ll be targeted by criminal gangs.
Talking to the Star-Telegram, Jesus Vazquez said he’s getting acclimated to his new surroundings. He has a job, but it only pays around 2,000 pesos a week, the equivalent of around $112. He wants to send money home to help his wife pay the bills, but there’s not much to go around.
Vazquez said he’s buying clothes when he can at places like flea markets to replace what he had to leave behind in Fort Worth, and he wants to add small luxuries, like a water heater, to the home he’s living in to make it more comfortable for when his wife and children eventually join him, which could happen as soon as this summer.
On the whole, he said living in Mexico hasn’t been too bad. He speaks Spanish, though he said his family in Mexico tells him he speaks it with an American accent. The area he lives in is relatively safe, Vazquez said, “as long as you mind your business.”
But he worries Cassidy and their four children will have trouble adapting once they move down there. Cassidy Vazquez is an American citizen, born and raised in the U.S., and their children, who range in age from 6 months to 8 years, don’t speak Spanish and don’t know life outside North Texas. Then there’s the added worry of uprooting the two older children from their schools and friends.
“Do I want to? No,” Cassidy Vazquez said when asked how she feels about relocating to Mexico to be with her husband. But she acknowledged that the kids need their father, and she needs help supporting the household.
“They just miss their dad,” Cassidy said of her children. “They haven’t seen him since November.”
Cassidy Vazquez has been getting by with assistance from family and friends and with donations from a GoFundMe campaign. She said she’s been busy with the kids and busy working out the logistics of getting to Mexico, as well as working with an attorney to find a way for her husband to return to the U.S.
“It’s been really stressful trying to figure things out,” Cassidy Vazquez said.
Complicating the case is the fact that Jesus Vazquez has a misdemeanor marijuana possession conviction on his record. He was arrested in Benbrook in 2022, and that put him on ICE’s radar.
Vazquez said he’s currently barred by law from returning to the U.S. for 10 years, but he’s seeking a waiver to allow him to re-enter the country sooner. His attorney has told him he could return in as soon as five or six years, under the best-case scenario.
Still, that’s too long for Cassidy Vazquez to wait. She said once school is out, she hopes to travel to Mexico to look for a place to live. After that, it will be entering into the unknown for this young family.
But Cassidy Vazquez said the ordeal has shifted her perspective in some ways. After seeing how difficult it is to immigrate to another country, she marvels at those who come north from Mexico into the U.S.
“I can’t imagine how people move up here with nothing,” she said.
This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 3:45 PM.