Immigration agents arrested a Milford father in his backyard last year as his young twin sons watched from an upstairs window, and within months he was deported to Guatemala, leaving his American wife to decide whether to raise their boys in the United States without him.
The arrest of Nexan Aroldo Asencio Corado on May 30, 2025, broke open the life his wife, Christina Toledo, had built in Massachusetts. Mr. Asencio Corado had lived in the United States for a decade without legal status. His pending application to remain in the country was set aside, leaving him with little hope of ever returning.
The twins, Jhon and Damian, were born in the United States, as was their mother. They have spent birthdays and school milestones without their father. Ms. Toledo, left to care for the boys alone, has weighed a choice she has described as playing on an endless loop in her mind: stay in the only country she and her sons have known, or move to Guatemala so the family can be together.
It is the kind of decision now facing thousands of mixed-status families across the country, as the Trump administration expands its mass deportation campaign and arrests immigrants with American spouses and children who might once have been spared removal.
The Boston Globe followed Ms. Toledo’s family for more than a year, from June 2025 to July 2026, from Massachusetts to Guatemala, as they were forced to decide whether and how to stay together. The newspaper published a photographic account of that journey on Saturday.
The pictures trace two lives pulling in opposite directions: a father starting over in a country he left years ago, and two American boys growing up in Milford with an empty place at the table.