Facing possible detention or deportation, NC father leaves on his own terms
For 30 years, Fidel Rivera lived, worked and paid taxes in the United States despite being undocumented.
But increased immigration raids and detentions, along with the push for people in his situation to leave voluntarily, added to his family’s anxiety over his safety. So on Oct. 13, he boarded a flight at RDU alone to Mexico, knowing he very likely cannot return for at least 10 years.
“It’s so hard to explain the pain you have in that three hours for the flight,” Rivera told The News & Observer over the phone days after arriving in Merida. “I don’t want people to have the same pain.
Rivera, his wife, Jenni, and their two teenage daughters are among families in the Triangle and across North Carolina faced with this hard decision: Should a loved one leave on their own terms or stay and risk being detained and likely deported.
Fidel’s decision to leave wasn’t about him, he told The N&O. It was for his family.
“They are U.S. citizens, my wife is a U.S. citizen and the politicians say they work for every U.S. citizen right?” he said. “What are they going to do to keep the families together?”
‘Live in the shadows’
Fidel came to the U.S. in 1995, at age 18, looking for a better life. He decided to learn English and work in construction after working in orange orchards in Florida, apple orchards in West Virginia and farming tobacco, cucumbers and sweet potatoes in North Carolina, he told The N&O.
Jenni Rivera, a Wake County high school math teacher, said her fear of what could happen if her husband was arrested or detained started almost 17 years ago — soon after marrying Fidel.
She thought marriage would be an easy fix to his immigration issues. But after speaking with two attorneys, it was clear that wasn’t the case.
“They said the only thing you can do is live in the shadows and hope the law changes, or you can leave the country,” she told The N&O. “We had a newborn, we weren’t going anywhere.”
So they stayed. But the pressure of living with the unknown started taking a toll on the family. Seemingly little, everyday occurrences that most people might not think twice about could spark anxiety.
Like when Fidel was running late getting home from work.
“He’s supposed to be home at 4 o’clock,” she said. “It’s 4:30 and he’s not here, and it’s 4:45 and he’s not here and it’s 5 o’clock. And so my panic starts setting in and escalating.”
Her worry didn’t go unnoticed — by her husband or kids. Once Fidel started seeing that anxiety in his oldest daughter, he said, that was the moment he decided it was time to leave.
“I don’t want my kids living with fear all the time,” he said.
The American Business Immigration Coalition estimates 1.1 million U.S. citizens are married to undocumented people. Republicans and Democrats alike in past years have acknowledged the need for pathways to citizenship for people like Rivera, members of families who have stayed out of trouble and contributed to their communities.
As recently as last year, Jenni went to Washington, D.C. to advocate for federal work permits for people like her husband.
But, with limited exceptions, such reforms were not achieved.
‘Catch 22’
Rivera said the narrative being pushed about undocumented people in the United States being dangerous criminals is wrong.
He lived in the U.S. for 30 years and worked as a master electrician for 17 of them, a trade he told The N&O he loved. “I learned the language, I learned the trade, I learned to be a good citizen,” Rivera said. “I was not hurting [anyone].”
Now, he and Jenni are in the process of buying a home in Mexico — with funding from Jenni’s parents.
The family’s plan for Fidel to leave has been in the works for months, she said. It took careful financial planning to make sure Fidel had a place to land once getting back to Mexico.
He will have to remain outside the U.S. for at least a decade after leaving the country in the early 2000s to visit family in Mexico for the holidays. Despite leaving and returning and then remaining in the country for over 20 years after that, Fidel still violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to Jenni Rivera.
Jenni could join him in five years when she is eligible to retire from her job as a high school math teacher.
“If I leave before that, I screw up my financial future for the rest of my life, whether we can come back or not, if we can ever come back, we need my entire full pension,” she said.
And if they can’t come back — they’ll still need her entire pension.
Jenni can apply for a waiver that would make Fidel eligible for reentry into the U.S. sooner than a decade, but she must show she “will suffer extreme hardship if the waiver is not approved,” according to the NC Justice Center.
But because Fidel is undocumented, many of the family’s finances are in Jenni’s name.
“This is a catch 22,” she said. “If I’ve been able to support my family on my own, how do I show hardship, that I need my husband?”
‘A slap in the face’
As part of its push to remove people without legal immigration status, the Trump administration is offering incentives to undocumented people who choose to leave the U.S. on their own.
People who notify the federal government that they are leaving the country voluntarily through the Customs and Border Patrol “Home” app may be eligible for some incentives. That includes free travel “without arrest, detention or restraining,” and a $1,000 “exit bonus.”
Around 25,000 people have left the country, notifying the government via the app, according to data obtained by ProPublica. That reporting indicates more than half of those people left the U.S. with DHS assistance.
The News & Observer had requested Department of Homeland Security data on how many people in North Carolina have used the app to notify federal officials that they were leaving.
Maryam Khan, staff attorney with the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project at the NC Justice Center in Raleigh, said immigration lawyers have not received enough information about how the initiative works — and if the promises will be fulfilled.
“It’s a holding pattern because we’re not getting any guidance,” Khan said. “We’re getting a lot of perhaps poorly worded or intentionally vague instructions, piecemeal, from the federal government.”
She said the program could be a “political tactic designed to increase deportations and bypass legal safeguards meant to protect immigrant families.” That includes the right to due process from law enforcement and the courts.
“Unlike in criminal proceedings, noncitizens are not guaranteed free legal representation in immigration cases,” Khan said. “Oftentimes, noncitizens are making these decisions without first consulting an immigration lawyer.”
Fidel Rivera didn’t take that deal, he told The N&O. Those incentives to nudge people like him to leave the U.S. are something else to him.
“That was kind of a slap in the face to me if I did that kind of stuff,” Fidel said about whether he took advantage of the government’s incentives.
‘If you stay there… good luck’
In late September, the Trump administration claimed that 1.6 million people voluntarily left the country “in just 250 days,” according to a Department of Homeland Security press release.
Khan, the staff attorney at NC Justice Center, said she is suspicious of those numbers. She called them “sensationalized” and that they could be intended to bolster the Trump administration’s push to get people to leave the country voluntarily.
Whatever numbers are accurate, they cannot capture the individual experiences of those leaving their family and a country that long ago became home.
Fidel Rivera said there are no words to describe the pain he felt — and continues to feel — after leaving his family. It’s something he thinks no one should ever go through.
But there may be no winning. If you stay and take your chances, Rivera said, “good luck.”
“I think the pain is going to be worse for you, and it’s going to be worse for your family,” he said.
This story was originally published October 20, 2025 at 10:44 AM.
