Hi, everybody.
Just a warning for today.
We'll be talking about immigration, ICE raids, and separated families.
I just wanted to let you know before you listen.
For the past year I've watched reporters all over the country and in my own Boston Globe newsroom cover immigration with a new, all-encompassing kind of focus.
I've seen these reporters show up to ICE raids, try to figure out where a family member's loved ones have been detained.
They've investigated who gets flagged as a possible threat to this country and why.
I've worried about the well-being of these reporters because the stories they tell can be complicated, personal and devastating.
And the work seems never-ending.
I've also thought a lot about the specifics of what they've seen how families and people in love cope with being separated and the threat of being pulled apart.
That's why today I am so grateful to welcome a co-worker who said she'd come on Love Letters to talk about this and tell a specific story that's been on her mind a lot.
My name is Julia McDonald, nieto del Rio.
I'm the immigration reporter for the Boston Globe.
Tell me, how long have you been a reporter?
I've been a reporter for about seven years and I've been covering immigration specifically for around five of those years.
As a journalist, when people say to you, like, do you go in with a view of this?
Do you go in with an opinion about what should be happening?
How do you explain to them what the reporter's lens is of this?
Yeah, I often get this question, whether it's on panels or out reporting, and I really view my job as going in to find the truth and what has happened at a very simple, basic level.
And then obviously stories evolve from there.
Julia has covered so many of these stories examining the public policy that brought us to where we are now when it comes to immigration.
I got together with her in the newsroom months ago and asked her is there one family story you'd want to share with our audience?
A story that makes you think of the kind of topics we talk about here at Love Letters.
One that comes to mind very quickly is the story of Cristina Toledo and her husband.
She told me that Christina and Nixon's experience is a snapshot of what's happening around the country in 2025.
Their personal history is also a great love story, one Julia has followed for months.
It's a romantic story, she says, and with Christina and Nixon's permission, she's going to share it.
We'll help Julia tell this story and we'll also add in voice memos and recordings from Christina and Nixon's life, so you'll get to hear their voices.
When Julia tells the story, it all starts with Christina.
Christina was born and raised in New Jersey.
She's in her late 30s, moved to Massachusetts about two decades ago.
Her mom is Puerto Rican.
Her dad is from Ecuador.
But, you know, she's a U.S. citizen.
Julia describes Christina as an extroverted millennial who loves to take pictures and spend time with family.
She posts a lot.
She has a big personality, solid sense of humor.
The story begins back when Christina's in her late 20s.
She says she was still dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship that had ended, one that had isolated her in big ways.
Not long after this, something happens.
Ten years ago, Christina meets a man on Facebook.
She gets a message from a man on Facebook. who appears to live nearby in Milford.
And at first she told me she was like, who is this random guy messaging me on Facebook?
But he was a little persistent, and she had just gotten kind of out of a difficult relationship.
She was like, let me see what this is about.
So she started messaging him back, and then they found out that they lived just a few blocks from each other.
She was skeptical, though.
Not only because she's just gotten out of this bad relationship, But also because this random guy whose name is Nixon is just some guy on social media.
She was like, you know what, let's meet in person.
I need to, you know, check you out a little, see if you're the real thing.
So they meet at a park for their first date, and she said it was lovely.
And, you know, things just really go from there.
They start to really hit it off, despite Christina being about eight and a half years older than Nixon.
So she was a little not super sure about that age difference, but they decided to give it a shot anyways.
Turns out they've both been through a lot.
As they get to know each other, Christina learns that Nixon's story is complicated.
He's only been in the U.S. for about a year.
Nixon is from Guatemala.
He crossed the border unlawfully and was arrested by immigration agents.
Family says he basically turned himself over, but was deported back to Guatemala when that happened.
Very quickly, he tried to come back into the U.S.
And he did.
He crossed the border again a few months later and made it to Massachusetts.
I asked Julia why Nixon was determined to come to the U.S. back then.
He was 20 at the time.
He's from an area of Guatemala It's pretty rural.
It's near the border with El Salvador.
You know, his family was a very humble family, works in farm work.
His parents would sell coffee beans on the street.
You know he, partly at least, was looking for a better life, as many folks are, and decided that this, you know, was the best path at the time.
I don't know if you can answer this question.
This is a clueless question by me.
But like, how often are people arriving in the country for a second time after that experience?
Is that less?
Is that more rare?
I don't have like the stats on it, but it's pretty common that people might be deported.
Especially this is he was deported through a process called expedited removal.
And it's when Someone at that time and someone was apprehended near the border and pretty quickly deported out of the country.
It happens super fast.
Like he, you know, entered through Texas, was immediately arrested and sent back to Guatemala.
This is something that, you know, was pretty common before the Trump administration.
And communities have sometimes made multiple attempts to come back to the U.S.
Nixon starts to become a big part of Christina's life.
She's setting up a new place after her last relationship and starting new work.
And Nixon's there for these important changes.
He comes over to her place a lot.
Then, about a year into dating, they decide to move in together.
Christina said, you know, you're spending all your time, you know, at mine anyways, Nixon.
Like, why don't we just do this?
They do it and spend the next few years building a home together.
And I just want to be clear, the romance piece.
As all of this happens from the beginning, it's a slow burn.
They're into each other, but moving at what I might call a snail's pace.
They hold hands on the couch.
They really just talk and get to know each other for so long.
Christina admits that even when they did move in together, to her it was sort of about saving money.
But of course they wind up being very in love.
They'd been supporting each other's happiness for a really long time, letting their connection grow.
So when it finally goes official, it feels right.
In 2020, four years after they first meet, they find out they're pregnant.
With twins.
Christina winds up being one of the many people who has to give birth, basically still in lockdown times.
She's admitted to the hospital weeks before delivery because of complications.
It is a very lonely and scary time.
She has a pretty difficult pregnancy.
The twins go through some health issues, but Nixon seems to be super supportive of Christina.
Even though it was a really hard time, it brings them closer.
She gives birth during COVID.
She was a high-risk pregnancy.
He couldn't be in the hospital all the time.
So she felt lonely but he made the biggest effort that he could to be there as much as possible for her and the twins.
One of the twins was in the NICU for a while.
And basically they go through this really hard time.
Come out stronger.
Have these little babies when Nixon decides to propose.
He sets up all these rose petals in the house, you know, gets cameras ready.
They have so many, so many pictures and videos of the day.
In 2021, they get married.
And it's after this, as they begin settling in as a family, that they think can we do this on the record and both be citizens of this country?
It won't be easy.
Julia explains how complicated and unlikely it can be to get citizenship after already being deported.
I think that most families who I've spoken with always hope that there's going to be a path for them to become legal in this country.
It's such a different life.
With documentation, someone is able to work, maybe in the job that they always dreamed of working, or just not be scared of walking out the door and being arrested.
And most of the families I've spoken to always, always hold out that hope.
And a lot of them.
Even if they've crossed the border illegally, they willingly turn themselves over to immigration agents to be able to fight their cases in immigration court and basically prove to an immigration judge why, under US law, they should be allowed to stay.
So there is a process for folks who have entered illegally to do this.
And actually, Nixon was in the process of trying to become a legal permanent resident.
So him and Christina had started the paperwork.
He was basically told the government, like, I am here.
And he, through the paperwork, basically admitting you're here without a legal status, but that he's married to a US citizen and is seeking to have a legal status through that marriage.
When all of this starts, it's going okay.
Julius says Nixon gets approval to begin the process, which is its own step.
Basically he tells the government I know I did this illegally, but I'm a good citizen of the community and have a family here and I want to have lawful permanent residency.
From there, they begin more steps to get approval for a green card.
It's after Trump takes office for a second time in 2025 that ICE raids, detainments and deportations become a daily part of the news cycle.
What once felt like a family life with hope, or even one that could become on the record, begins to feel like a daily threat for Christina and Nixon.
It's in May of 2025 that their nightmare happens.
So it was a Friday at the end of May.
Nixon, every morning, wakes up pretty early, around 6.30, heads out in his work truck.
He works in framing and construction.
And From Christina's later account it sounds like he realized he was being followed at some point pretty close to their house.
He's with a family member in the car and immigration officials stopped the car.
Nixon and Christina had made this pact since Trump was inaugurated.
Christina said that basically every morning when Nixon would go to work she would make him text her when he arrived to his work site to tell her that he was safe.
She was so worried that this exact thing was going to happen to him.
And if she hadn't heard from him for even like a few hours, she would start to get really anxious and nervous.
You know, just a backdrop for what does happen, which is this morning.
I mean, Christina's fears come true.
And they had talked about this pack.
So, like if he was close to home, he would try and get as close to home as possible so that at least Christina and the twins would know what had happened.
Because there are reports of folks just not coming home from work or dropping their kids off and their families not knowing where they are for 48 hours before getting a call from them from an ICE detention center.
So Nixon runs out of the car and tries to run back home and Christina hears a scuffle from her upstairs window, looks out the window and sees two immigration agents handcuffing Nixon in their backyard.
Okay, baby, just relax.
Just relax, okay?
Because you didn't do anything, so relax.
You don't have any problems or anything.
The ICE agents are wearing kind of like tactical vests.
I don't know why there's so many fucking cars.
Like, guys, can you please tell me why you're taking him?
And at this point, the twins are awake.
That puppy is fine.
Daddy's fine.
The agents arrest Nixon and lead him into a car.
And he is yelling out to Christina, and she's filming from the upstairs window.
And there's this moment in the video where you could just see him look up at her at the window with this like really despondent look on his face.
It's heartbreaking.
You can see that this is what they were worried about happening.
It has happened.
The whole situation is chaotic and confusing.
Come on, let's go downstairs.
Come on, let's go downstairs.
Christina runs up to an officer and says listen, my husband has an application to be in this country legally and that application is in progress.
Do you have any status in the U.S., sir?
We're in process right now.
He's got approval already for the I-130.
So you have approval or do you have process?
We have approval of I-130, yes.
Let us just check it out.
If he's good to go, we'll let him go.
The officer tells Christina Nixon is being detained and that the details of that paperwork will determine what comes later.
Christina realizes she has to move quickly.
She has to find Nixon.
Turns out he's being held at a facility in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Then, as a couple, they have to make some big decisions.
Julia says that in watching Christina and Nixon over the next few months, she learns that what guides these decisions, no matter how complicated the questions, is something very simple.
Love.
We're back.
So Nixon is a Guatemalan immigrant who is in the United States illegally, but he has an application in progress to become a permanent resident.
Before he can get through this application process though, he's arrested by ICE on his property with his children watching from the window.
It's at the end of May 2025.
His arrest happens as part of Operation Patriot, which Immigration and Customs Enforcement says.
Well, I'll read this from the ICE website.
It's an operation focused on transnational organized crime gangs and egregious illegal alien offenders through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
But the Trump administration has made it clear that they could arrest anyone they come across who's in this country unlawfully.
Nixon has no criminal record.
His case is complicated though, because when he immigrated here years ago, he was deported and then quickly returned.
On the day of the arrest in May, after Nixon is taken from the property, his wife Christina, who's with her children, has to move so quickly to figure out where her husband is and what to do next.
She finds out that his first stop is at a field office in Burlington, Massachusetts.
It's basically a holding facility, not meant for people to stay there.
No beds or anything.
But he's there for multiple days.
Then Nixon is moved to another facility in Connecticut, before finally ending up at a federal correctional institution in Berlin, New Hampshire, where he's held for two months.
First of all, have you ever been allowed to visit these places as a reporter?
I have never been able to access a NICE facility, no.
During this time...
What communication is allowed?
How much can Christina keep tabs on any of this?
She was very frustrated during this time.
Nixon has to pay for his minutes.
She's putting money in his account so that he can call her.
But they're pretty like short phone calls three, four minutes, sometimes five to ten, once or twice a day once he's settled at this facility in New Hampshire.
And most of the phone calls, some of which we've heard, consist of her really checking that he's physically and mentally okay.
You can hear through these phone calls, you know, how affectionate they are with each other.
There's really this sense of Their lives just being so intertwined and having their routine with themselves and the twins just being completely disrupted by this arrest.
And obviously Nixon on the phone calls is constantly asking Christina how she is and how the twins are and if they're faring okay without him.
Christina gets to see Nixon in detention three or four times and sometimes brings their twins.
But the New Hampshire facility is about four hours from her home.
She has to miss work to go.
She has to pay for a hotel.
Julie remembers Christina telling her about the first time she visited Nixon there.
It was a really short visit, but she just was asking the security guard like okay well, am I able to kiss him?
And the security guard was like, no, you can't kiss him.
She's like, I can't even kiss him on the cheek?
And the security guard is like, no, you can't, and you can, like, only hug.
So...
They see each other and she is just like obviously overwhelmed with emotion.
And they are only able to hug for 10 seconds.
But she said it was like the most meaningful hug to her because you know she hadn't seen him since all of that happened.
What happens to all of the pieces in his community that he was attached to, even outside of the family, like with work with, like?
What are people told?
What do people know?
Christina found herself pretty overwhelmed with just the kind of details of all the dismantling.
She had to help basically dismantle his business, tell his clients what had happened, clients who he had worked with for 10 years.
Just economically a devastating situation.
He worked full time.
She basically had to take up extra shifts as a bus driver and office manager, find child care.
For her children.
Her mom flew up from Florida to try and take care of the kids.
You know, even obviously just rent for the house.
He had a work truck that they were now trying to sell.
All of these things that maybe you might not think about.
I wanted to ask Julia about Milford as a place, because no matter where you live in the US, you're probably surrounded by a lot of people who come from other places.
I grew up in Maryland at a time and in a town where there was a robust population of Korean immigrants.
And when I moved to Boston, I realized that so many people I met had ties to Brazil and the Azores.
I think many of us wonder, during ICE raids, why this town, but not that town?
Why has this person been detained, but not that person?
Milford, the town where Nixon and Christina's story takes place...
It's like not ever really on my radar for any reason.
No offense to Milford.
It's just a town.
But ICE seems to be giving this one community a lot of attention.
I want to learn more about that.
So Milford, comparatively to the rest of Massachusetts, has a high immigrant population.
So about 30% or so of the residents of Milford are foreign born, according to US Census data.
And I'm sure there are some folks who aren't responding to some of those census questionnaires because of their immigration status.
But overall, in Massachusetts, the foreign born resident population is about 17%.
So it's significantly higher there.
And We're not completely sure why.
I mean, it could be the high immigrant population that ICE became aware of.
But in the last few months there have been a number of high profile arrests happening in Milford, particularly the arrest of Marcelo Gomez, an 18-year-old teen immigrant stopped by ICE agents on his way to volleyball practice in May, which my colleague Marcela Rodriguez did a lot of deep dive reporting on.
But that happened just a day or two after Nixon's arrest in Milford.
With Nixon, far from home.
Christina does her best to make life normal for her kids, whatever that can mean.
In June of 2025.
As all of this is happening and Nixon is detained, The twins have a birthday their fourth.
Christina had previously planned this whole birthday party for them, where Paw Patrol dress-up characters were going to come.
They were all going to celebrate in the backyard, have like a lovely summer evening.
But obviously with what happened to Nixon and his arrest they scaled that back and just decided to have a small cake at home with Christina, Christina's mom, the twins' grandmother and the twins themselves.
Julia was there with a Globe photographer that day.
Of the two twins, John is a bit more attached to his dad.
And the cake comes out and Christina is encouraging the boys to blow out the candles.
And John is visibly upset and distressed.
He leaves the area, starts hiding behind the doors, behind the couch, behind the counter.
And shaking his head, he does not want to blow out the candles.
And so Christina is trying to figure out what's going on, sits him on the counter.
And as she starts tearing up, John just starts repeating, I want daddy.
He didn't want to blow out his birthday candles.
He wanted daddy.
Christina, understandably, just became really emotional.
And we have a beautiful picture from Jess Rinaldi photographer, at The Globe in that moment, just holding John and trying to console him, but really not knowing when he would next see Daddy or you know, when she would see him either.
By the end of June, Nixon has had a bond hearing, and that bond is denied.
Julia says this is likely related to Nixon reentering the country after being deported when he first arrived.
It becomes clear that Nixon is set to be deported again, even with an application for a green card in progress.
I said earlier in this episode that, as a couple, Christina and Nixon's choices about what to do are motivated by their strong love for each other.
They feel they have to be together, as a couple and as a family.
And there is a place where that's possible.
But that's in Guatemala, Julia says.
And so Christina and Nixon really... start to have conversations about what this looks like.
What they're both on the same page about is that they can't stand being away from each other and not being together as a family.
And so Christina basically encourages Nixon that it's better to be free in his home country than to be locked up here in the US.
The U.S. government deports Nixon.
Christina decides that she and the boys will follow him to Guatemala as soon as they can.
Christina at this point had never been to Guatemala.
The twins speak some Spanish, but mostly English.
They have never been to Guatemala.
You know, the three of them are U.S. citizens.
Their life is here.
I'll remind you that Nixon, now in his early 30s, hasn't been to Guatemala in about 10 years since he left to come to this country.
Did he have community there at that point?
That was strong community, that he felt like he would be going to a place where he knew a bunch of people.
He thankfully has his parents there, so that's who he would be going back to.
His siblings mostly live in the US now, his cousins, most everyone else has migrated, but his parents, who are older, still live in a rural section of Guatemala.
Christina finds out that Nixon is set to be deported in August.
She hopes to be in Guatemala when he gets there, so he can see the kids and so they can finally see each other.
In the days leading up to Nixon's deportation, she is frantically trying to find out when he is going to be deported.
And it's really hard to figure these kinds of things out.
It's kind of like whenever ICE has room on the plane, they have to plan with the government in Guatemala.
And so she gets word that August 9th or 10th, he's set for deportation.
So she is looking up plane tickets books.
A plane is there a day and a half, two days later with both boys in Guatemala City and is able to reunite with Nixon at the airport.
The twins show up wearing matching Super Mario Brothers backpacks.
Nixon is waiting with balloons.
The whole trip is joyful, but it's also really complicated.
She was just so happy to be reunited with Nixon.
But at the same time there are a lot of worries about what the future looks like, especially for the twins.
It's a different education system.
Where Nixon is from, where his family's from, is a lot more rural.
It's hard to get out there.
It's three, four hours from Guatemala City.
I mean, for the boys, it's like such an immense change.
She even told me a little before she left.
She sent me a voice note just saying like you know, I'm nervous for the boys, like they're scared of animals.
And, you know, Nixon's family lives on a farm.
What are we going to do about that?
Of course, the boys, I'm sure, will get used to the animals.
But it's like these little things that just show how different their lives are.
And human beings and kids are adaptable and resilient.
But I think For now she's most of all worried about taking the kids away from their routine and their life.
When I met with Julia a few weeks ago, she explained that Christina and the boys had returned from their trip and started school.
Before they can pick up and move, a lot has to happen.
She has to close down her whole world in the U.S., which isn't a simple process.
It's this careful balance between ripping the kids away from the life they know now, but also not keeping them away from their dad for too long.
There's a cost here on so many levels.
But when the courts are making decisions, when administrations are making decisions, when families are making decisions, who is there to help kids in the process?
I think that's been the most difficult part of all of this.
I mean, she... has built a really close relationship with her family.
We met Christina's mom who adores the twins and the twins are really close to her.
So that's been helpful.
But mom doesn't live in Massachusetts.
Christina has friends who for some time and community members who dropped off diapers and food and things of that nature.
She started a GoFundMe to help with legal and all kinds of other funds that she needs now as a single parent.
For Christina and Nexen.
For this couple, what do you think their future hopes are in terms of being able to share a life together in the same place and in a safe way?
Do you think that they hope to eventually return under different rules?
Do you think they want to build a life there?
So Christina is a pretty realistic person, I'd say.
Her mind right now is focused on trying to get her residency in Guatemala and She told me that she hopes in like three, four years they can be fully settled back there together.
I mean, of course, she said she would love for them to go back to their life in Milford.
But for now, she just doesn't see how that could be a possibility with what has happened.
And so I think for her boys to be happy and healthy and eventually be able to spend time, at least for large swaths of time, or whatever it may be, with their dad, and then all live in one place again, is the final goal.
But she knows that like it's it isn't going to be the same.
It's going to be different and they're going to be missing and have to adapt tremendously to change from their everyday life here.
And it's going to be a process.
Julia will continue to cover Christina and Nixon's story.
In fact, she has plans to travel to Guatemala soon with Christina and the kids.
I'm grateful because I've wanted to hear from the families I read about.
Sometimes headlines and even very descriptive paragraphs from writers like Julia can pass over me.
I do remember reading Christina's story written by Julia in The Globe and thinking what will Christina and Nixon do next?
I also want to know, as a colleague, what does it mean for Julia?
I think that watching these stories, it changes someone.
I asked Julia how she's processing all of this information and trying to care for herself, as she follows this kind of news full time.
I don't know if I have an answer to that question, but what I can say kind of keeps me going is even like small messages or emails from readers who appreciated or felt connected to a certain story, a certain family in the story, to all, like the families who share their stories with us and and trust us, like Christina and her family, trust us to be there in these really heartbreaking, painful moments that show you know the human cost of some of these policies.
And of course There are folks who want harder line immigration policies and I think it's important to note that and see that, because that's the moment that we're in in this country.
But you know, of course, when you see a kid calling out for their dad on their fourth birthday, it's just, I think, a level of human empathy that we hopefully all have to feel for that.
And I mean, I guess the only way that I get through is knowing that hopefully it's some degree, that readers are learning and hearing something from these stories and that the families feel that their voices are represented in a fair and accurate way that they're able to share what they've gone through.
What has this story in particular shown? and seeing these families up close.
And again, this one for certain, what has that taught you about love and relationships?
I think like since the beginning, when I first met Christina, I was just so struck by how much she talked about Nixon, and not just in a way of, of course, all the hardships that come being without him, but just how much she missed having his presence as like a supportive husband and a good father.
Just having just seeing this couple going through so much but prioritizing still their love and, you know, support for each other through all of it.
And I think when things get hard, we can sometimes go different ways and you know, obviously clashes can happen.
But this couple has really grown, come closer through it all and decided that they want to choose each other and their family over everything.
And yeah, for me it's.
I guess it's just like beautiful to see that and heartening in a way, and I think, with so many sad, awful stories going on, it has taught me that, you know, families can still stick together through it, and so that's been.
I want to thank Julia for coming on today.
I want to thank Christina and Nixon for permission to share their story and their calls.
I'm going to send out a newsletter with links to Julia's work and include photographs by Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe photographer, Jessica Rinaldi, who's one of the most empathetic and wonderful people I work with.
You can get the newsletter at boston.com slash Meredith.
Love Letters is a production of the Boston Globe.
Our producer is Christina Honitou.
Our executive producer is Kristen Nelson.
Story edit, mixing, and mastering by Jasmine Aguilera.
Sound design by Christina Honitou.
Special thanks to Nancy Barnes and Linda Henry.
Remember, Love Letters is also an advice column.
Send any questions about dating divorce marriage singlehood whatever, to loveletters at bostoncom.
Yeah, it's been hard, like, you know, being mom and dad for both kids.
But like I tell the kids, we're going to see daddy soon.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
Thanks for listening.
