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On election night, Sonia Coria turned to her husband Carlos Leon and asked if they should return to Mexico. They had been living in Glendale, Arizona for seven months, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with Coria’s aunt and slowly rebuilding their lives far from the violence that made them flee Michoacan, Mexico. Their eldest child Naomi (8) was attending school, making friends, and learning English. Little Carlos (5) had learned to ride a bike in their pool. They felt safe in their neighborhood of Glendale, but Trump’s victory changed how they viewed life in the U.S.
They followed the law by entering through a border crossing and applying for asylum, though the process was ongoing. Fearing deportation, Coria and Leon decided to leave before Trump took office on January 20th. They set one condition: waiting until after his inauguration to save money and see if he would be as hardline as promised.
On January 19th, they packed what they could into their Ford F-150 pickup truck and drove towards the Mexican border. A few weeks prior, immigration enforcement had detained a family living two doors away from them, which reinforced their decision to leave. At the Dennis DeConcini border crossing at Nogales, Mexican customs confiscated their vehicle and took $5,000 in savings as a fine.
Without a car or money, they sat outside customs with their remaining possessions—clothing, tools, kitchenware, a television, refrigerator, and children’s toys. They had lost everything. Leon found work in a car repair shop, while Coria got a job at a Chinese restaurant. Their children missed the United States, with Carlos longing for his bike and Naomi forgetting her English.
In June, customs informed them that their truck had been seized and was now federal property, and they owed $18,000 in customs duties for bringing it to Mexico. Despite their struggles, Uruapan remains a dangerous place due to organized crime.
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Why did Sonia Coria and Carlos Leon decide to leave the U.S. before Trump took office?
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