Their immigration status had become a defining, immutable fact of who they now were. In news stories about “surges” or “floods” of migrants massing toward the US, these were the people whose faces were blurred and anonymous. Eventually, they would become numbers on government spreadsheets and talking points at election time. They were “removables,” in the cold bureaucratic language of homeland security. Those who managed to traverse Mexico and cross the US border would earn yet another new status for their trouble. By law, they would be repeat offenders, and thus felons.
