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This story was produced by El T\u00edmpano<\/a>, a civic media organization serving and covering the Bay Area\u2019s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.<\/p>\n Liseth M. tucks her 10-year-old son Mateo into bed and kisses his forehead every night. As she turns to leave, she hears the same question he\u2019s asked since the summer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen is dad coming back?\u201d<\/p>\n In early July, Liseth said men who identified themselves as immigration agents knocked on the family\u2019s door in the East Oakland neighborhood where they live. They told her they were searching for a person who no longer lived in the building, but when they checked the family\u2019s IDs, the agents found her husband had re-entered the U.S. illegally more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n Liseth, her 10-year-old and 17-year-old sons, and her 18-year-old daughter are applying for asylum. She has asked to be identified by only her first name and last initial for fear of retaliation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Liseth, immigration agents arrested her husband that day in July and took him to an immigration detention center in Bakersfield. In September, he was deported to his home country, Honduras.\u200b\u00a0<\/p>\n Since then, a crisis has unraveled at home. Ten-year-old Mateo has skipped school multiple days because of mental health issues. Liseth is struggling to pay the rent, college-related fees and other basic needs. Next month, they may risk eviction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Liseth and her children are among a growing number of Bay Area families struggling to pay rent and other basic expenses after a head of household is detained or deported. In response to a growing crisis, a network of mutual aid organizations and a regional foundation have stepped in with financial relief for rent, food, transportation and legal fees. But resources are running out, forcing them to scale back support for rent and other needs in the Bay Area, where the cost of living ranks among\u00a0\u00a0the highest in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had to turn folks away,\u201d said Angel Ibarra-Nu\u00f1ez,\u00a0Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership<\/a>\u00a0co-director at Centro Legal de la Raza, an Oakland legal aid organization that has provided rent assistance to immigrants who are victims of deportation or detention since last year. \u201cWe have a backlog of applications because we\u2019re running out of funds.\u201d<\/p>\n Immigration arrests skyrocketed across the country, and in the Bay Area, this past summer. In July, immigration authorities arrested more than\u00a049,000<\/a>\u00a0people across the country, including more than\u00a010,000<\/a>\u00a0in just five days. In August, the number rose to nearly 51,000 and is expected to keep climbing. In Northern California, ICE made 890 arrests in July. That\u2019s more than a 60% increase since February, the last month for which this data was previously available, according to a\u00a0KQED analysis<\/a>. Lisbeth\u2019s husband was among those detained in July.<\/p>\n As the Trump administration ramps up its immigration crackdown, including an\u00a0unconfirmed<\/a>\u00a045-day enforcement surge called \u201cOperation Safe California,\u201d ahead of the midterm elections, Bay Area immigrant families have fewer places to turn to for support.<\/p>\n When Liseth\u2019s husband was arrested in July, she said she only had $200 cash in her pocket to get by. As a construction worker and mechanic, her husband was able to cover $2,000 in rent for their three-bedroom apartment, groceries and daily transportation. Liseth divided her time between selling goods at La Pulga, Oakland\u2019s largest flea market, and taking care of her children. Her 18-year-old daughter is a first-year college student on scholarship.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After her husband\u2019s detention, mutual aid organizations helped Liseth cover two months of rent and gave her a $500 grocery gift card. But after his deportation, his absence became permanent, and the short-term help was insufficient. She\u2019s struggling to get enough work hours for November\u2019s rent, and the organization that helped her has run out of funds.<\/p>\n Her landlord has offered not to charge her for water and trash until she is stable again, but she said he told her she will need to leave the apartment if she can\u2019t pay rent in full.<\/p>\n \u201cOur lives changed completely because our head of household is no longer with us.\u201d<\/p>\n Liseth M. of Oakland, whose husband was deported<\/p>\n \u201cOur lives changed completely because our head of household is no longer with us,\u201d said Liseth, sitting in her living room on a Saturday morning. Liseth said the days her husband wasn\u2019t called to a construction site, he\u2019d find work as a day laborer.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe never stopped, so we didn\u2019t have the need we have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Liseth and her three children are all undocumented, and they don\u2019t qualify for federal rental assistance like Section 8 or public housing because of their immigration status. The Trump administration has also\u00a0proposed<\/a>\u00a0to cut U.S. citizens off from these programs if they live in a mixed-status household, leaving people with fewer places to turn to for help.<\/p>\n Aid runs out <\/p>\n Last year, when Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard and immigration agents in the Bay Area, regional political leaders and the San Francisco Foundation \u2014 an El T\u00edmpano funder \u2014\u00a0came together to launch the\u00a0Stand Together Bay Area Fund<\/a>.\u00a0The initiative gives urgent financial assistance to eligible families who are unable to pay rent or buy food after the deportation or detention of a breadwinner, as well as people who have lost income because fear of enforcement is keeping them from work.<\/p>\n The San Francisco Foundation administers the fund and distributes it in grants to trusted community-based organizations. So far, the fund has raised $3.6 million, over a third of its $10 million goal, Judith Bell, San Francisco Foundation\u2019s chief impact officer, said in an interview. As of August, 626 households and at least 2,000 individuals across the region have received assistance, according to a Foundation spokesperson.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But this year fewer donations have come in and as a result, the foundation is scaling back fund distribution across its partners. \u201cThis is part of the tragedy that\u2019s underway,\u201d Bell said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough resources, so we have given as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n Alameda County Supervisors Nikki Fortunato Bas and Elisa Marquez contributed $50,000 each to the fund from their county discretionary budgets last year. Although a number of high-profile leaders like Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan promoted the initiative and\u00a0pledged to support the fund<\/a>\u00a0last September when it was launched, city funds have not been allocated to the fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response to questions about fund contributions to Stand Together and rent relief efforts for families impacted by detention or deportation, Shelby Weiss, a spokesperson for San Francisco, and Tasha Dean, who works in the office of Mahan, the San Jose mayor, said city funds were never part of the commitment, but rather that the mayors pledged to help raise funds in other ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Henry, a spokesperson for Mayor Lee, said the mayor had raised $100,000 for the regional fund earlier this year, \u201cand is actively fundraising with private and philanthropy partners.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n All three cities pointed to their own city-funded efforts underway, including deportation defense, legal clinics, family emergency planning and one-to-one financial counseling. In San Francisco, anyone, regardless of immigration status, can apply for a broader rental assistance\u00a0program<\/a>, which prioritizes city residents at imminent risk of eviction or homelessness.<\/p>\n A quiet crisis<\/p>\n In recent months, the Trump administration has changed its detention and deportation strategy. Instead of high-profile raids like the ones seen in Minneapolis or Los Angeles, the administration quietly arrested more people in July and August\u00a0than at any other time<\/a>\u00a0during the president\u2019s second term.\u00a0<\/p>\n Immigrant advocates say the administration\u2019s revamped strategy is playing out in courthouses, at scheduled appointments and during check-ins with immigration officials across the Bay Area. Many of these cases take place far from the public eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are not connected to, or in, an immigrant community, you\u2019re just not as aware of how significant the crisis is,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n Ibarra-Nu\u00f1ez of Centro Legal de la Raza said the absence of visible high-profile detentions has diminished the sense of urgency that can help leverage more resources in the region, forcing community-based organizations to choose who they can support.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we first started, we were paying a full month\u2019s rent for townhomes, and now it\u2019s looking like we\u2019ll need to cut that back a little bit to see how or what we should prioritize,\u201d Ibarra-Nu\u00f1ez said. Centro Legal de la Raza received $130,000 from the San Francisco Foundation last year, but he said because of lack of funds, they will be receiving less than half this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/10.10.2026-FamilySeperation-02-scaled.jpg\")
Liseth M. sits beside her son, Mateo, on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. Since her husband\u2019s deportation, Liseth has struggled to cover the family\u2019s $2,000 monthly rent.\u00a0Credit:\u00a0Hiram Alejandro Dur\u00e1n\/El T\u00edmpano<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/10.10.2026-FamilySeperation-04-scaled-1-1064x1600.webp\")
An open bible rests near a window in Liseth\u2019s home.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/10.10.2026-FamilySeperation-01-scaled-1-1064x1600.webp\")
Liseth M. and her son Mateo embrace.
Credits:\u00a0Hiram Alejandro Dur\u00e1n\/El T\u00edmpano<\/p>\n