The evening felt muggy as Mimi Lettunich and Kris Wigger prepared hamburger sliders and tater tots for dinner. The children, 9-year-old triplets and their 7-year-old sibling, had just gotten out of the pool and were hungry.
Lettunich, 57, and Wigger, 48, are relearning how to raise young children. They have been out of practice since their two sons are young adults now. “When’s the last time you had tater tots for dinner?” Lettunich asked herself with a laugh. “But it’s amazing.”
Most of the children devoured their food within minutes as they played a card game with Lettunich and Wigger on the back patio of their Portland home that late August night. David, one of the triplets, was the last to finish eating and Lettunich stayed behind to provide him company.
“My mom makes a lot of spaghetti,” the boy told Lettunich, adding that his favorite meal is his mom’s soup. “My mom puts chicken in the soup and something green. The soup is good when you add rice.”
Lettunich and Wigger find themselves playing the role of fill-in caregivers in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. The children’s parents are among the thousands who have been detained in Oregon and across the country, upending lives and separating families. They have been held at the immigration detention center in Tacoma for two months and it’s unclear what will happen to them or what their fate could eventually mean for their children, who were born in America.
For now, the kids appear to be adjusting to their temporary home, even if the longing for their parents is evident.
“When is everything going to go back to normal?” Lettunich said the children ask. “When will life be back to the life we had?”
The couple didn’t think twice about taking in the children and caring for them. Family friends for about 20 years, the couple spoke with the kids’ parents after Trump won re-election, offering their support while holding out hope it wouldn’t come to that.
But Jackie Merlos, her children – David, Carlos, Abby and Jeffrey – and her mother, who was visiting from Honduras, made headlines after they were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Peace Arch Historical State Park in Blaine, Washington, in late June while meeting with relatives from Canada at the park. A few days later, the children’s father, Carlos, was also arrested by immigration authorities outside the family’s home in Portland. His immigration status has not been made public.
Jackie Merlos, who has a pending U-visa for victims of crime, and her kids spent about two weeks in a Customs and Border Protection facility. In mid-July, following a federal court intervention, the four children were released to Lettunich. Their mother was transferred to Tacoma where her husband and her mother were being detained. Initially, Customs and Border Protection claimed it was charging Jackie Merlos with “alien smuggling,” but in mid-July an agency spokesperson said the charges were dropped.
Customs and Border Protection has refused to say why the family continues to be detained.
“The information requested … is the subject of ongoing litigation,” an agency spokesperson said in late July. “CBP will not comment further on active or pending litigation at this time.”
On Friday, a spokesperson added that “removal proceedings have been initiated” for Jackie Merlos but wouldn’t otherwise comment on active or pending litigation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t respond to a request seeking comment. Jill Nedved, who was introduced as the family’s lawyer during a press conference in July, said she can’t comment on active cases.
The children’s mother so far has been denied release on bond and doesn’t have another hearing until Oct. 14. It’s uncertain when the father will have a hearing, Lettunich said. The circumstances for a family reunification are “unclear, unfortunately,” she said.
When the couple first brought the children home this summer, they told the kids that it was not a sleepover but more like summer camp. Two months later, the children are now back in the classroom, navigating a new school close to their new home.
The couple started a GoFundMe account that has raised close to $39,000 to help cover some of the children’s expenses and their parents’ legal fees. State officials, who earlier this year drafted proposals to help children separated from their families by the Trump administration, have not reached out to the family to offer assistance and Lettunich and Wigger haven’t asked for help.
U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, the Portland Democrat who raised awareness about the family’s initial detention, continues to call for their release.
The trauma that the children have been exposed to is “egregious,” she said.
“Sending our kids with their new backpacks to new opportunities and classes without their parents, and never knowing if they’d see them again, is just cruel to a degree that makes me, frankly, ashamed,” she said.
No process to help guardians
The four siblings are among an unknown number of minors who have been separated from their parents in Oregon under the Trump administration.
The Oregon Department of Human Services put together recommendations earlier this year on how to best help children in those cases. But much of the conversation revolved around how to help parents before a possible detention happens by identifying guardians for their children, not on the children temporarily living with guardians or family friends.
Among the recommendations sent to Gov. Tina Kotek’s office in March was for the state to develop a process and funding mechanism to assist with reuniting children with their parents, if deported and if requested. Rather than a “government-led approach,” the memo proposed state funding and logistical help to nonprofits that would provide services and support to families preparing for or dealing with deportation issues. The memo recommended that the state take custody of children only when necessary.
In late July, Matt Kinshella, a deputy communications director with the Oregon Department of Human Services, said it did not appear the agency had received a call about the Merlos case. By then, the family’s story had been widely shared in news accounts.
“Also, to our knowledge, we have not received any calls about a child being separated from their parents due to immigration authorities,” he said in an email.
Jake Sunderland, a spokesperson for the agency, said there is no “automatic notification” process to the Oregon Department of Human Services if children are separated from their parents due to deportation or immigration detention.
“If this were to hypothetically happen, ODHS would only be notified if the child was reported to the Oregon Child Abuse Hotline because there are no known safe adults like friends or extended family who were able or willing to care for the child,” he said in an email.
Sunderland also said the agency has made no effort to contact guardians who may be caring for children separated from their parents due to detention or deportation.
“ODHS only has the authority to contact a parent or guardian when a safety concern is reported to the Oregon Child Abuse Hotline,” he said in an email, “and it meets the legal criteria to be an allegation of abuse, resulting in a child safety assessment being assigned.”
Sunderland in late August said there was no update on the recommendations that were sent to Kotek’s office in March. The newsroom submitted a public records request for related documents but was told documents would not be disclosed until Oct. 2 at the earliest.
Remembering how to raise young kids
Lettunich and Wigger met the children’s parents about 20 years ago when the Merlos’ small construction company was a subcontractor performing renovations at their home near the Oregon Zoo.
“She was, from day one, amazing,” Lettunich said about Jackie Merlos. “We have been close friends since that time.”
After Trump won re-election, Jackie Merlos asked the couple if they would become guardians for their children in the event something happened, Lettunich said. They reassured her they would.
But it hasn’t been easy. Lettunich lost her 83-year-old father days before the family was detained by immigration authorities this summer.
“We lost mom a couple of years ago, so this was incredibly difficult,” she said with red, watery eyes, her voice breaking. “There was some grieving, but within days, we heard about this, so my energy went straight into, ‘Where are they?’ Because for so long, we didn’t even know where they were.”
The couple took on more responsibility July 14. The kids were released from detention but their parents remained in custody, their mother’s deportation being halted by a judge. It was a Monday morning when Lettunich received a call from officials asking if she could pick up the children from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Within an hour, Lettunich and one of her young adult sons were on their way.
Lettunich said she was able to get the kids before they were put on a plane to possibly be flown out of the country. The children had new passports that the federal government had expedited, she said.
“Mom was screaming when we left,” Lettunich said the children told her right after she picked them up. “We’ve never heard mom like that.”
The couple quickly had to get back into a routine of caring for young children.
“I will say that I’m out of practice,” Lettunich, whose sons are 21 and 24, said with a laugh. “It took me a minute. … That first week was a little bit rough.”
Wigger said the situation has been “a wave of different emotions” with the “ups and downs.”
He said the couple has had to balance the joy of having the kids and knowing they’re in a safe place but also recognizing how hard it is for their parents, in particular for their mother, to be torn apart from her children.
“I’m sure that was one of the most torturous moments and still is for her,” he said. “So, you’re playing a duality of … feeling the love of grabbing these kiddos but knowing there’s a parent that’s not with their kids is also very heartbreaking.”
It has been “like riding a bike,” he said, because the couple was “on the verge of empty nesting.”
They’ve had to remember the rhythm of setting schedules and doing bedtime stories. To remind children about brushing teeth and taking showers. To make lunchboxes for summer camps and have age-appropriate food at home.
“The snacks we have in this house we have not had in a long time,” Lettunich said. “My husband is like, ‘Are you eating goldfish again?’”
On a recent evening, as Lettunich was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, David came to her and showed her one of his small fingers that hurt.
She grabbed his hand and gave his finger a gentle kiss.
“I’m sure that’s better now,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he responded.
Later, the children sat outdoors, with blankets, to eat ice cream and watch Despicable Me 4 on a movie projector as the temperatures slowly cooled.
After the movie, the children were going to head inside for a bedtime story. Bedtime is often when the children “start sharing their emotions” and talk about their parents, Wigger said.
“They talk about missing them a lot,” Lettunich said. “We talk about it every night.”
The couple believes it could be months before the children are able to reunite with their parents. They don’t know what will happen but hope their friends can remain in America.
With every court hearing, the toll on the parents and children gets more intense.
“I miss them so much that I would give my life just to hug them for a moment,” their mother wrote in a journal on Aug. 28.
“The kids are resilient,” Lettunich said. “There are highs and lows but the longer it goes, the harder it gets.”
Lettunich said she doesn’t know if the parents have talked about what could happen if they are deported. Despite being held in the same Tacoma facility, the Merlos were able to see each other there for only the first time earlier this month, Lettunich said.
“We also don’t talk about it,” she said. “The thought is frightening.”
The mother hasn’t lost hope, telling her children in phone calls that “it won’t be forever,” Lettunich said. And the couple is finding ways to help the family feel connected.
On Wednesday morning, Jackie Merlos’ father celebrated his 72nd birthday.
In the kitchen of their new house, the children spoke to their mom on an iPhone, their grandfather on an iPad.
For a moment, they were all together, singing happy birthday in Spanish.
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