WESLACO, Texas (AP) 鈥
As President Donald Trump intensifies deportation activity around the country, some immigrants 鈥 including many who have lived in Texas鈥檚 southern tip for decades 鈥 are unwilling to leave their homes, even for necessary medical care.
鈥淗e waited and waited because he felt the pain but was too scared to go to the hospital.鈥
鈥 82-year-old Maria Isabel de Perez said of her son, whose appendix exploded earlier this year.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 talk about that, like who is legal. We probably would be surprised to know that they aren鈥檛. This is something we don鈥檛 discuss.鈥
鈥 Elizabeth, who lives in the Rio Grande Valle and attended a health class at Holy Family Service Inc. last month.
People here are among the most medically needy in the country.
Nearly half the population is . Women are more likely to be diagnosed with and elderly people are . Bladder cancers can be . One out of every four people live with .
As much as a here doesn鈥檛 have health insurance to cover those ailments. And a quarter of people live in poverty, more than double the national average.
Now, many in this region are on a path to develop worse health outcomes as they skip doctors appointments out of fear, said Dr. Stanley Fisch, a pediatrician who helped open Driscoll Children鈥檚 Hospital in the region last year.
White House officials have directed federal agents to leave no location, including hospitals and churches, unchecked in their drive to . Those agents are even combing through one of the federal government鈥檚 largest medical record databases to search for immigrants who may be in the United States illegally.
Federal agents鈥 raids began reaching deeper into everyday life across the Rio Grande Valley in June, just as the area鈥檚 1.4 million residents began their summer ritual of enduring the suffocating heat.
This working-class stretch of Texas solidly backed Trump in the 2024 election, despite campaign promises to ruthlessly pursue mass deportations. People here, who once moved regularly from the U.S. to Mexico to visit relatives or get cheap dental care, say they didn鈥檛 realize his deportation campaign would focus on their neighbors.
It feels like we鈥檙e living in a combat area. Even people like me who have status, I don鈥檛 want to go out either, we鈥檙e scared. They鈥檙e looking for any excuse. If they see you have brown skin or you鈥檙e Latino, they鈥檒l take you.鈥
鈥 Maria Gomez, a community health worker for Holy Family Services, Inc. said in Spanish, through an interpreter.
鈥淓very day, I pray that the president will have a change of heart.鈥
鈥 Maria, a mother who is married to an American in south Texas.
鈥淲hat did we do to them?鈥
鈥 Ofelia, a 73-year-old grandmother in Hidalgo County who is the sole caretaker of several grandchildren.
This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.
Text from the APNews story, , by Amanda Seitz and Jacquelyn Martin.
