Each month, Imelda Richárd, Prison Ministry Coordinator for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, shares stories from the immigration detention unit in Atlanta’s federal prison. Names are changed for protection.
“Leaving home was never about pursuing a dream. It was about surviving.”
Last week I met D.
He has been in immigration detention for two months. He is the father of four children. Three years ago, he buried his 17-year-old daughter after she lost her battle with cancer—a grief no parent should ever have to carry.
Two months ago, D.’s life changed in an instant. One morning, as he was on his way to work, he was detained by immigration authorities. Since that day, he has remained in detention, separated from his family and uncertain of what comes next.
D. came to the United States as a teenager after fleeing the violent threats of a gang in his hometown in Mexico. As he shared his story, he showed me the scar across his neck—the lasting reminder of an attack that nearly took his life. Leaving home was never about pursuing a dream. It was about surviving.
The danger did not end when he crossed the border. Over the years, his parents and siblings also received threats, forcing them, one by one, to leave everything behind and seek safety in the United States.
Now D. faces the possibility of being deported to the very place he once fled. What weighs on him most is not his own safety, but his family. His oldest daughter has told him she wants to go to Mexico to be with him if he is deported. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said that what frightens him most is not returning himself—it is the possibility that something could happen to her.
In detention, I often meet fathers whose greatest fear is not what will happen to them, but what might happen to the people they love.
Please keep D. and his family in your prayers, and pray for all those who carry impossible decisions and uncertain futures while longing only to protect the ones they love.
