In their silence and their stomachaches, or the sudden burst of tears, the children living through hardline federal immigration enforcement are saying one thing: they are not OK.

In the days after her father was detained while on a landscaping job in La Mirada on June 18, 11-year-old Isella could hardly stop crying. Her mother, Maria Murillo, then noticed Isella’s eyes started twitching, followed by uncontrollable shaking in her head and hands.

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“We had to take her to the emergency room about a week later,” Murillo said. “They said it was due to too much stress and anxiety.”

As the Pomona family remained separated, with their patriarch Jose Zavala later moved to an ICE processing center in El Paso, Texas, Isella, one of the couple’s four children, continued to struggle.

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