“After we got married, we consulted with a couple of lawyers and never got anywhere. And, you know, we were fine,” she said.
The couple got to work and were fearless, until Trump took office.
“I worried about him every time I left the house. He worked all over the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania area,” Muñoz said of his construction work. “We always heard stories about, ‘Oh, they took this and that, they took this and that.’ I was always worried, worried, worried.”
It’s a radical change for Muñoz, who is 50 years old and the mother of four adult children still in the U.S.
“I was constantly surrounded by people. I had a regular clientele where I worked. So I was always socializing. On my days off, I went constantly,” she said. “Now I feel like I have no purpose.”
Alfredo is hopeful about his new life in Mexico. “It was like a month where I felt a little strange, a little different,” he said in Spanish. “But now it looks like we’re both going to fit in here.”
The Muñoz are not alone in their movement.
North of Puebla, in Mexico City, Haley Pulver, 34, is going through a similar journey.
She moved here from Connecticut in August with her partner of three years, Oscar Enriquez.
The couple met on the dating app Tinder and started out as friends. Enriquez said he remembers being alone, with no friends outside of his welding job, and how he felt like he could be himself when he was with her.
It was a while before she learned that he was living undocumented in the United States. He told her that she had unknowingly overstayed her visa in 2019, she said. Then, two months later, he was detained for about a week before being released. He had never been to jail before, “so it was shocking,” he said of being taken away in chains.
Pulver said a judge issued an order for his removal last year.
“I don’t remember the specific conversation we had, but he brought it up. And then, of course, I had to get the information. So I asked 500 questions,” she said.
