Karen, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant who lived and worked in Oklahoma for 28 years, is scrambling along with her family to keep up payments for the house while she goes to college.
That’s been much harder after Immigration and Customs Enforcement captured and deported her father.
While Karen remained in her college classes, studying to be a teacher, her older brother left school to take a job to support her and her younger sisters. She requested her last name be withheld for fear her family would be targeted by immigration authorities.
“Ever since my dad's been gone, it's mainly my brother, he kinda stepped up to help with all the financial needs that my dad was doing for us," she said. "We all knew that we had to get ready in case of this outcome. Even though we hoped that he would eventually come back, that was not the case."
On September 12, at about 7 p.m., Karen's father, Ruperto, called to ask her and her brother for help. While entering the interstate in Oklahoma City, his truck blew a tire and overturned. There were no others involved in the accident. While the siblings hurried to get ready to help, their father called back. This time, he needed Karen to translate for Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers responding to the accident, who wanted to know if Ruperto had a driver’s license or papers documenting legal status.
Karen translated for the troopers, who asked questions, and for her father, who pleaded with them to let his insurance take care of the situation.
But Oklahoma’s highway patrol is one of 77 law enforcement agencies across the state now deputized by the federal government to carry out immigration enforcement actions under ICE’s 287(g) program.
Even though he had insurance, the troopers told Karen, the problem was he had no license and was undocumented.
Karen and her brother arrived at the scene, but the troopers would not let them see their father. After several hours of waiting, her father called and told them he was being deported.
“I guess he thought that he was being deported at the moment, so he was just telling me his final goodbyes," she said.
The authorities first took Ruperto to a jail in Purcell. Then to one in Tulsa. Then to the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, which has been used by ICE and U.S. Marshals since 2025 to hold detainees. Karen said he has now been deported to Mexico.
Ruperto’s deportation comes as ICE arrests surged across the nation, with more than 10,000 arrests in just the last week of June, according to national reports.
Badges for ICE
Since March, the number of Oklahoma law enforcement agencies with 287(g) agreements has more than doubled, from 30 to 77, an increase of 47 in under four months. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol was one of the earliest adopters and uses the task force model, which was previously shelved under President Barack Obama amid criticism it was used for racial profiling.
The Donald Trump administration resurrected and expanded the task force model, and Gov. Kevin Stitt's administration made it a centerpiece of Operation Guardian, which he and Tim Tipton, commissioner of public safety, announced in February 2025 using fiery political rhetoric, heaping vitriol on immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Vietnam, and claiming they are terrorists, cartel members, and members of other transnational criminal organizations.
However, 70% of those being detained by ICE as of April have no criminal record, and of those with convictions, many are for minor offenses including traffic violations, according to immigration data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Karen said her father, Ruperto, was a roofing contractor who worked to provide for his wife and children, his labor eventually enabling them to have a home. Karen and her brother began college, continuing the American Dream into the new generation.
"We're just trying to live that American dream, obviously, that my dad really believes in," she said.
Karen, who is majoring in elementary education, worries about the effect losing their father will have on her younger siblings. Numerous studies have documented the devastating effect of losing a parent to deportation.
"The deleterious effects are profound and long-lasting," according to this 2024 article in the National Institute of Health, which described the loss of a parent to deportation as an ambiguous loss because the absence is neither permanent nor definitive, with uncertainty around if they will ever be reunited. That uncertainty causes anxiety and stress.
A May 13 report by the Brookings Institution estimated 205,000 children, including 145,000 U.S. citizen children, had parents detained by ICE since the administration began.
Children who lose both parents to deportation can end up in Oklahoma's foster care system, recognized as one of the most unstable in the country.
Waking up in Hell
When Roger Swope took his wife, Milana, to Branson for their 10th anniversary in 2024, the Oklahoma Army and Air National Guard veteran had no idea that within a year he would lose her to incarceration and perhaps to deportation to a war-torn country.
Milana, who is originally from Russia, met Roger following a disastrous first marriage. According to her attorney and her husband, she was trafficked to an American man who traveled to Russia, married her, brought her to the U.S., and then left her when she became pregnant with their daughter. He kicked her out of the home and divorced her. She lived in a homeless shelter before giving birth to her daughter. Immigration authorities gave her a voluntary removal order, but that would mean abandoning her child, a citizen, in the U.S. Despite the risks, Milana chose to stay in this new country where she didn't know the language very well, but she soon found a job and started raising her daughter. Then she met Roger.
They hit it off and got married. They became a family, and she saw her daughter off to college. When their nest was empty, Milana and Roger settled in to enjoy their golden years together. For their 10th anniversary, the couple visited Branson, Missouri, often billed as the quintessentially American destination for older married couples to enjoy lemonade, a few shows, and sunset walks.
Milana had since 2001 worked to regularize her status in the U.S. and hoped to eventually gain a green card. The process had a few hitches in it caused by the divorce, but the Swopes showed up regularly at their immigration meetings as scheduled, working through the long process. Until one day, they took her.
"Every day is like waking up in hell," Swope said.
Swope, whose story has appeared in a number of news stories statewide, said he and his wife showed up at ICE's compound in west Oklahoma City in September 2025 for their regular immigration check-in, usually a formality. They waited as usual in the waiting area, and when the officials called her back, Swope had to stay behind, alone. Then, they called his name and told him she would be deported.
Since then, Swope estimates his efforts to free his wife have so far cost more than $20,000, with her waiting months, sometimes falling ill, in detention centers in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. For each move, ICE shackles her hands and feet. At one point, they loaded her onto an airplane with other Russian women, flew them to New Jersey on the way to Russia, but ultimately returned her to Louisiana.
Swope noted how unusual and dangerous it would be to fly her back to Russia now, with the country becoming even more unstable in recent months.
"They've proven in the past that they've been able to deport people to Russia, even though there's an active war going on there now," he said."They're sending drone attacks into Moscow. Anybody who's paying any attention should know that. They've shut down all incoming flights, so I don't know what their plan is. They keep bringing up this idea of a third country."
On June 29, Swope received notice that her second bid for freedom was turned down by a federal judge. The court ruled that she had not cooperated with the Russian consulate. The defeat leaves Milana in a holding cell at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in limbo.
"They're just hell-bent on trying to get her removed," Swope said. "I don't even know where they're gonna send her, but I mean, they're trying like hell to get her out of here."
The Swopes' attorney, Elissa Stiles, said Milana has few options now. She said Milana's detention is a hardship on her and her husband, and they are suffering.
"Certainly, we're not giving up. We're going to continue to fight, to try to get her released, and try to prevent the deportation, since it would be unjust," Stiles said.
Oklahoma in front
The Trump administration selected two Oklahomans for prominent immigration positions in recent months. In March, Trump appointed Sen. Markwayne Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security. On June 27, Trump announced he selected Mullin advisor and former Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Lance Schroyer to lead ICE.
"He is a PATRIOT with real operational experience, and proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst, including spearheading 287g Law Enforcement partnerships with ICE! Lance has firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets and, just like ME and our Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, he LOVES the men and women of ICE," Trump posted on Truth Social. "The Senate must CONFIRM Lance, IMMEDIATELY — Do not delay."
Mullin issued a statement praising Schroyer as a friend, and urged the Senate to confirm him.
"Lance is coming straight from the operational field where he ran large scale operations and worked alongside state and federal partners to remove illegal aliens from Oklahoma under the 287(g) program," Mullin said.
Karen’s father has had intermittent communication with her and her family by phone. She said their initial attempt to get legal help exhausted what savings they had and gained them nothing. So, recently, her father agreed to let ICE take him to Mexico rather than continue through the process of forced removal. He has now returned to the city where his father lives, and will try to make a new start from there and find work.
But Karen sees what that means for the future. Ruperto will not be able to apply for reentry to the U.S. for 10 years, at which point he will be 63.
"He is not a criminal,” she said, breaking down. “He's just a simple man who just wanted to get a job and feed his family. That's it."
"My two younger sisters, he won't be there for their graduation. He won't be there for any big life-stepping goals. He was there for me and my brother, which is not fair," she said.
Stiles said the deportations are wounds that may never heal for those left behind.
"I am seeing it just break people," Stiles said. "The mental anguish that they're struggling to get through every day, the emotional damage that it's doing to spouses, to parents and children. It’s really hard to put into words the grief that I am hearing and seeing from both my clients and their families."
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
