Inside a Family’s Move to Self-Deport From the US

Sasha and Julio Mendoza are saying goodbye to the United States for good.

But the decision didn’t come easily.

The two identify as Pittsburgh natives — arguably Julio more than Sasha, they joke, even though he arrived in the United States when he was 11 years old.

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Julio is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. Sasha and their three young children are US citizens. For seven years, they’ve navigated being a mixed-status household, but the return of President Donald Trump to office changed their plans.

“I’ve literally never felt anxiety the way that I have in the last few years here,” Sasha told CNN.

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Trump’s push prompted a question from Sasha to Julio: Was it time to leave?

“It was an executive order being signed. And that was her call first, like, ‘What do you think about moving to Mexico?’ And I said, ‘Honestly, at this point, yeah, let’s do it,’” Julio said.

Over the course of six months, Sasha, Julio and their children — ages 8, 5 and 4 — began winding down their life in Pittsburgh, including packing up their home, weighing plans for their local construction business, and researching life in Mexico.

The family of five now joins a newly emerging community of people who have chosen to voluntarily depart the United States, fearful of the potential consequences they’d face if they stayed in the country without legal status.

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But it’s not just people who are undocumented taking the leap. Some US citizens, like Sasha and her three children, have opted to leave with their spouses.

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They were confronted with their worst nightmare when Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was residing in the US, was mistakenly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. While Julio and Abrego Garcia have different backgrounds, in appearance, they look similar — and Abrego Garcia’s wife is also a US citizen.

“I can see myself in that, and I don’t want us to wait until we’re in the same situation,” Sasha said.

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