I spoke with Julie Moreno yesterday, a U.S. citizen from New Jersey who made the gut-wrenching decision to help her husband of nine years self-deport to Mexico. Not because he committed a crime, or because they didn’t try to adjust his status legally, but because the risk of detention and disappearing in our current immigration enforcement climate felt more dangerous than indefinite detention and forced deportation.
Julie’s story captures something essential about this moment in immigration policy. We’ve moved past the hypothetical warnings about family separation into the brutal reality of it. For years, American Families United has been advocating for legislation that would allow U.S. citizens to sponsor their undocumented spouses for legal status, explaining to anyone who would listen that marriage to a U.S. citizen doesn’t automatically confer immigration status. Many Americans are still not aware of this, but it’s true. People often assume that the process is straightforward, even automatic. It’s not. And the consequences of this misunderstanding are families like Julie’s, forced to choose, as Julie said, between two different forms of trauma.
Please listen to our conversation to understand how Julie and Nef came to this difficult decision, what it means for their future, and why Julie is not backing down from speaking out to help find a solution for millions of other mixed-status couples and families before it’s too late. You will also find hope and inspiration in Julie’s remarkable ability to hold the authentic and appropriate anger she feels alongside a commitment to not becoming bitter, but instead using her experience to propel her into speaking out with courage and moral clarity.
Here are some key themes from our conversation.
The permanent bar and impossible choices: How entering the U.S. twice without authorization triggers a permanent bar to adjustment of status, leaving voluntary departure and a ten-year ban as the only legal pathway, a totally counterintuitive situation that punishes people for trying to support their families.
Safety versus separation: Why Julie and Neftali ultimately decided that the risk of detention, with its documented abuses and disappearances, outweighed the guaranteed pain of a decade apart, and what it means that this felt like the safer choice.
Feeling less free at home: Julie’s stark observation that she felt more free in Mexico than returning to U.S. soil, and what this says about the erosion of civil liberties affecting not just immigrants but U.S. citizens, as well.
The dignity of speaking out: Why Julie continues to speak out after her husband reached safety, and what it means to feel a mix of relief and anger over the situation she and her husband have been forced into.
The American Families United Act: What this straightforward legislation would do (create a waiver for the ten-year bar, allow families to bring their case before a judge) and why it should be common sense policy rather than controversial.
The human cost of inaction: Julie’s heartbreak over the collateral damage that’s finally getting attention, the lives that will never be the same, and the peace of mind that can never be recovered for families caught in detention.
Follow her evolving story on Bluesky and here on Substack. Julie’s story was first reported in the news by Pablo Manríquez at Migrant Insider earlier this week, and has also been featured in El País.
Julie will be in D.C. next week with AFU Action to meet with lawmakers and tell them directly what Congress’s failure to act has cost her family. The story is no longer about what might happen—it’s about what is happening, right now, to thousands of American families.
If you are a reporter who is interested in talking with Julie about her story, Julie asks that you send emails to press@americanfamiliesunited.org.
Thank you Jim McKeever, Coffee Envy, Anne O. Green Gables, and many others for tuning into my live video with Julie Moreno. I am deeply grateful for your attention and support.
—Austin Kocher
