Katherin Melgar was clutching an avocado stuffie and large bear. The 10-year-old walked through Logan Airport as her older sister, 20-year-old Damary Melgar, carried her backpack.
Damary, a local college student, doesn't know when she'll see her family again. Katherin is leaving for Honduras with their mother, Margarita Melgar.
Damary is staying in Boston.
The three walked slowly toward the security line, walking slower still as if the weight of imminent separation was dragging them back.
Just two days before, Margarita was given a choice by immigration agents: Be detained indefinitely, or self-deport. So, at dawn on Sunday, she left for Honduras after 12 years away from a country where she faced extreme violence.
"I'm really upset," Margarita said in Spanish, glancing at her girls. "I'm so worried. Katherin hasn't been able to eat since lunch yesterday, she's anxious. My eldest is depressed, I know it."
She is bringing Katherin, her youngest daughter, with her — a U.S. citizen who has never been to Honduras.
Her two older daughters, a 17-year old named Tania and Damary, will remain in the United States.
Margarita, Damary and Katherin had hoped to share a meal at Logan, but there were no restaurants before security. The three huddled a few yards from the line on a bench for an hour, talking quietly. Katherin pulled out her World Cup sticker book, and her sister helped her sort through players' stickers as travelers walked by. Other families walking through security were also self-deporting.
Every few minutes, the three would stop to hug. Damary whispered in her mother's ear constantly, leaning her head into the crook of her neck and wiping tears away as she smiled at her sister. After an hour, Margarita got up and said it was time to go. They all shared a final hug.
After watching her mother and sister go through the security line, Damary stumbled through Terminal E with a family friend, crying silently.
Self-deporting to a place that's 'dangerous for women'
The Department of Homeland Security has urged immigrants it doesn't consider to be here legally to "self-deport" and leave the country voluntarily.
The Trump administration claims that an estimated 2.2 million people self-deported in the first year of his second term. The Center of Migration Studies argues, using the government's own previous data, that the true number of self-deportations in 2025 was around 200,000.
No matter what, that means hundreds of thousands of individuals like the Melgars are choosing — without much of a choice — to self-deport and leave the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security says the United States is offering "illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now." It is unclear if families have received those funds while abroad.
The agency says it encourages people to leave and "reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way — if not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return," according to an emailed statement.
Even so, Melgar's case is unusual. She still has a pending motion to reopen her immigration case before the highest court in immigration decisions — the Board of Immigration Appeals. Immigrants with pending cases are usually free to remain in the United States. Melgar was also officially given less than 72 hours to leave the country after the board denied one of her attorney's motions, a stay of removal.
"I've never seen this before," her attorney Sara Nael said of the board's decision to not allow Melgar to stay while her motion is being considered.
The U.S. State Department has a longstanding travel advisory for Honduras, asking travelers to reconsider going there due to "widespread" issues of violent crime, rape, human trafficking and extortion.
"Margarita is going back to Honduras, to a country that is dangerous for women and girls," said Patricia Montes of Centro Presente, a East Boston immigrant advocacy group.
The Melgars were constituents of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who's been advocating on her behalf for over a year. She called the immigration enforcement efforts here "traumatizing to children."
"It is devastating that the Trump Administration has treated Margarita and her family — including her 10-year-old who is a U.S. citizen — with such cruelty and inhumanity," Pressley wrote in a statement. "As a mother, I understand why Margarita has self-deported along with her 10-year-old at this point with few options left, but my heart breaks for the thousands of families forced to make these impossible decisions."
The Department of Homeland Security said Melgar had "chosen to self-deport" and would be leaving the country on Sunday.
"ICE does not separate families. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," wrote an agency spokesperson.
12 years of trying to stay in the US
Margarita has been fighting to stay in the United States for more than a decade. But her attorneys say she hadn't exhausted all her options yet.
In Honduras, she dealt with ongoing gender-based violence from a family member who stalked and threatened her physically. She fled in 2014 with her two elder daughters, then 7 and 3, crossing the southern U.S. border to claim asylum.
Margarita has gone to regular check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since she arrived, though they've become more frequent under the second Trump administration.
Her asylum case was denied years ago, which she and advocates say was due to an attorney not following filing deadlines, but community members ended up connecting her with a new attorney — Sara Nael — last year.
Nael filed two key motions with the Board of Immigration Appeals: One to request a stay of removal, and another to reopen Margarita's case on the basis of needing to care for her U.S. citizen child who is disabled.
That motion to reopen the case is still pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals.
"She doesn't represent a threat to the U.S. society. She has been working. She has been paying rent and taxes. She has been sending her kids to school. She came here looking for protection— escaping from extreme violence," said Montes at Centro Presente.
But on June 2, Melgar suddenly received a ticket for a flight. The Department of Homeland Security told her she might have to get on a plane if the judge denied her stay.
"I was in shock. I thought we had time until the judge made the decision," she said.
“I’m really, really heartbroken that my mom has to go back and my little sister. I also know that I need to be strong and I need to keep myself together because they’re gonna be dependent on me.”Damary Melgar, a 20-year-old whose mom and sister returned to Honduras
Homeland Security offered to pay for flights for the whole family. Ultimately, Margarita chose to only bring her youngest daughter — Katherin, the U.S. citizen — while her two other daughters worked through their own immigration processes.
It seemed like something was shifting behind the scenes, but Margarita couldn't find out more until her next appointment with ICE at the end of the month.
On Thursday, Judge Hugh Mullane denied staying Melgar's removal, saying only that "the Board has concluded that a stay of removal is not warranted." The attorney Nael said she'd never seen a judge offer no reasoning.
The Executive Office of Immigration Review — which oversees the Board of Immigration Appeals — told GBH News it doesn't comment on cases and that "the decision speaks for itself."
She said that deportation officers mentioned that powerbrokers in Washington told the court they needed to move Margarita's case along and rule quickly on the motion to stay.
The next day, Margarita went to a required ICE check-in in Burlington with an attorney from Nael's firm. As six ICE officers surrounded her, she was given two options: be detained immediately for an unknown amount of time at an unknown location, until her Board of Immigration Appeals case was decided — or leave the country on Sunday.
"These are the only two options they gave me. They would not give me the option to fight my case while free," Margarita said. "My attorney asked for more time, but was denied."
"Margarita obviously doesn't want to be away from her ... children, and she obviously didn't want to go back to a country that she has been harmed," said Nael. "She came here for a valid reason. She was escaping trauma."
48 hours to leave her home
Decisions were made quickly. The 17-year-old daughter Tania, who was traveling with a relative, would stay with that relative.
Damary, 20, would stay for school and to continue pursuing her case for a special immigrant juvenile visa.
Katherin, 10, would go to Honduras with her mother.
Margarita quit her job at a local restaurant. Then she spoke to her supervisor to quit her second job at Flour in Harvard Square, where she decorated the cakes and pastries that sat in the display case. "They were so kind. I loved that job so much," she said, crying.
Margarita went to Katherin's school to get her education records.
Damary called her mentor and former teacher Jessi Lazcano to let her know about the situation. Lazcano was out of state, but her partner would drive the family to the airport on Sunday and accompany them as far as possible.
"She was feeling an immense wave of pain and grief knowing that they are now officially a broken family," Lazcano said.
As a Boston Public Schools teacher, Lazcano said this is not the first time she's witnessed a former or current BPS family in this situation. But this is the situation she's known about most intimately.
Lazcano has known Damary since she was her teacher in middle school, and then again in high school. She's watch Damary learn, grow and cope with the impact immigration policy has had on her family.
"We have a large team of teachers that have been behind Damary and her siblings, and watching them grow up and become the amazing humans they are," Lazcano said. "They deserve equal chance just like anyone else here."
GBH News joined the Melgars at the Brighton home on Saturday as they got ready to move out and leave Boston behind. Ten-year-old Katherin was cramming a magenta suitcase with her clothes, and clothes for her teddy bear. She had another suitcase that was already stuffed. Her backpack was filled to the brim with art supplies, and Margarita was planning on taking her to TJ Maxx to buy more.
Katherin and Damary were sorting through a collection of art on a windowsill to see who would keep which piece. They'd painted and drawn their family cat, Midnight, the Eiffel Tower and nature scenes.
"This is Midnight," said Katherin, holding up a painting.
"This is a forest," said Damary. "And this is my tree," she added, as her younger sister giggled at the scrawled painting. They agreed Katherin was the better artist.
Margarita dragged bags of bedding downstairs. Katherin had talked her mom into painting their bedroom bright pink, so they had several layers of white paint to go before they moved out of the apartment.
"I'm extremely sad, worried," Margarita said. "I worry about where we live, how I will get Katherin an education there, and find her medicine. I'm worried to return because the issues that forced us to leave remain problems."
She said the Honduran village they're going to is eight hours by car from the capital, and two hours from a hospital.
When Damary left the room, Margarita added: "She's so distressed. This is what worries me so much — she's very attached to me. It's only been us, together."
When Damary sat down for an interview, she waited for her mother to leave the room before she cried. She said it was hard to describe how close she is to her mom and sister.
"I'm really, really heartbroken that my mom has to go back and my little sister. I also know that I need to be strong and I need to keep myself together because they're gonna be dependent on me," she said.
Damary works full-time as a restaurant server and studies at Simmons College full-time, too. She was pre-med, but scrapped her dreams of being a doctor last year and she changed her focus to business and finance. She was afraid more school would be too expensive for her family. She says she needs to focus all her energy on graduating with a degree and holding a job, and plans to send money to her mom.
"If I'm not OK here, then it's my family that's gonna be affected. So I need to make sure I'm strong and I need to make sure I don't get depressed, because if anything goes wrong with me, then my mom and my little sister are not gonna be OK. So it's a lot of pressure," she said. She paused for a moment to wipe away tears and put on a smile.
The three stayed up all night, packing and talking.
Damary will have to find another place to live: she can't afford the Brighton apartment's rent on her own, and can't afford student housing. The memories there would also be too painful, she said.
She's afraid she won't see her mother or sister again, and struggles to understand the decisions from federal officials that brought her family to this point.
"We went to all the visits. We complied with everything they said to us. Like, we never ran away. We never hid it. We always were there. We presented our face to them. We were there to follow any rules that they had for us. Like, it was really hard to know that no matter how much we were trying, they didn't care,"she said.
Damary said it's "really hard" to know that her mother is returning to poverty, and moving to a place that "isn't safe for her."
As Katherin packed, GBH News asked her about what has distracted her the last few days. She's excited to see France win the World Cup. She says Kylian Mbappé is her favorite player and has a drawing of him.
Asked how she feels about leaving Midnight, the six-year-old cat hiding in the corner, she paused and looked up.
"I'm sad," she said. "But she's staying with my sister, and that's because I don't want my sister to be alone. If you're sad, Midnight comes always with you and says like, 'I'm here with you.' And she hugs you with her little arm. Like, 'It's OK.'"
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