I call my parents every week, which costs 9 cents per minute. It has been a few years since they made the six-hour drive to visit me in prison and phone calls are the most common way we stay connected.

They had been planning to visit me this summer for the first time since 2019. But recently my mother told me over the phone those plans were abandoned. She was still going to visit in the coming months, but would do so alone. 

My parents feel it’s unsafe for my dad to travel anytime soon. My mom is white, and my dad is Hispanic. They are worried that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will target him, even though he is a fourth-generation American.

His fears are not unfounded. According to ProPublica, in just the first nine months of President Donald Trump’s second term, ICE agents detained at least 170 U.S. citizens during immigration raids of protests. ICE agents are legally allowed to detain people if they suspect they are in the country illegally, according to ICE. In 50 such cases, where agents questioned people’s legal standing to live in the U.S., almost all of them were Latino. 

In Oregon, the state where my parents live and I’m incarcerated, ICE arrests have skyrocketed from 113 in 2024 to at least 1,100 last year, according to reporting from the Oregon Capital Chronicle. These arrest numbers ranked Oregon in the top five states with the largest year-over-year increase in ICE arrests in 2025, according to the nonprofit newsroom Stateline that covers U.S. policy trends. 

Some legal protections have arrived, as an Oregon judge in early February ordered that ICE agents now need warrants to make most arrests in Oregon. This came after ICE agents detained people in Oregon who had citizenship or valid work visas. One of the more notable instances happened in November when four U.S. citizens, including a 17-year-old high school senior, were detained in a city an hour southwest of Portland, according to KATU-TV news.

These are the rogue antics my parents fear, even though the law should be on their side. After the disappointing phone call with my mom, I sat with the sober realization that I might not see my father for at least another year. 

I checked out a state-issued electronic tablet from the kiosk on the way back to my cell. I logged into the tablet and scrolled through old photos of my family that had been electronically sent to me and stored in my account. This was the closest I would get to seeing my dad anytime soon. I was charged 4 cents for every minute I looked at photos. 

A faded, gray photo of Rosalio Torres Luna caught my attention. He is my great-great-grandfather. In the photo, Rosalio has deep lines on his face, pronounced cheeks and a mouth that naturally turns down at the corners. Like him, I have a downward curve to my mouth that makes smiling an athletic movement. Most of the men in the family carry this trait. It feels distinctly Mexican to me.

Rosalio immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. in 1915 and spent his life laboring in a steel mill. He named his son Teofilo, but this was a difficult name to pronounce for English speakers. My family called him Phillip instead. After ninth grade, Teofilo left school and started working in the mill with his father.

Eventually, Teofilo started his own family. He had a son and wanted to pass on his name, but he knew it was culturally out of place, that his son’s job applications would likely be met with automatic discrimination and rejection. Instead, he named his son Phillip. He also gave his children one last name, following U.S. custom.

With his American name, my grandfather graduated high school and never worked in a steel mill.

I watched the circular loading symbol as I waited for my next page of photos. Two minutes and 8 cents in, I finally saw a picture of my dad, mouth skewered in a grimace. My dad doesn’t speak Spanish. Neither do his siblings. His parents spoke English at home because they worried their kids might develop an accent. 

If immigration agents approached him, would it help that he doesn’t have an accent?

As I waited for more photos to load, I realized I didn’t have pictures of my grandmother, Lola. I remembered the admiration she had for me.

When I was a boy, Lola would often grab my face and exclaim, “Look at those blue eyes!” She introduced me to people as her American son, because among my siblings and many cousins, I am the only one with white skin.

What my grandmother intended as praise often made me uncomfortable. But as I got older I realized I was a symbol for Lola and I accepted the spirit of her words rather than their letter. 

I understood her immense pride in the sacrifices our family made to be American. The price was in our names, our language, our culture and, in my case, our skin color. For her, each forfeit allowed our family to lead a better life. I felt regret for these sacrifices, but where I saw cost, she saw purchase.

I closed the photo app. I couldn’t afford to keep looking. I lay on my bunk and found no warmth in the thin bed and cheap, wool covers. I found no comfort in the stale air and bare, cinder block walls. I thought of my family, afraid they might be harassed for simply existing. 

I turned on my TV to watch the national news. A pundit said ICE was only arresting and deporting violent criminals. But more than 70% of people deported had no criminal conviction.

I know there are people who would deport my dad — a U.S. citizen without a criminal history — if they could. They would deport my grandparents, cousins and siblings, without consideration for the price they paid to be American. If they saw me out on the streets, these same people might ignore me, a person with a criminal record, because I can pass as white. It is strangely frustrating to be excluded from harassment because of the color of my skin. Can’t they see the downward turn of my mouth?

The next morning I went to work, where I’m the editor of my prison’s newsletter. I was still tired from restless sleep. I would make 60 cents an hour for the job, a high salary in my prison. I needed every cent to keep looking at photos of my dad. I wasn’t sure when he’d feel safe enough to visit me again.