Calm, soft-spoken nurse Gabriella Oloye considers her words carefully when she tells me about one of her recent home visits with an immigrant patient.

When the 6-foot-8-inch tall Oloye walked into a South Los Angeles apartment for an appointment with a middle-aged mother in June, the nurse noticed luggage near the door. The woman, an undocumented immigrant, had decided to self-deport and move her family back to Mexico.

Her children worried she and her husband had jeopardized their safety by attending their child’s middle school graduation earlier in June. While their children are U.S. citizens and want to stay in Los Angeles, the parents feel it is safest to return to Mexico.

“It feels like what I read in middle school about World War II with people hiding, not going out, not going to p

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