WESLACO, Texas (AP) — As President Donald Trump intensifies deportation activity around the country, some immigrants — including many who have lived in Texas’s southern tip for decades — are unwilling to leave their homes, even for necessary medical care.
With posters illustrating stages of pregnancy behind them, people attend a health clinic about diabetes held by Holy Family Services, a birth center and women’s clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, June 18, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Maria Isabel de Perez, 82, of Welasco, Texas, cries as she recounts how her son was too scared to go to a hospital when he felt intense pain in his abdomen recently, leading to his near-death when his appendix burst, after she attended a diabetes clinic hosted by Holy Family Services, a birth center and women’s clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, June 18, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
He waited and waited because he felt the pain but was too scared to go to the hospital.”
— 82-year-old Maria Isabel de Perez said of her son, whose appendix exploded earlier this year.
Margarita Perez, 87, center, listens to another attendee talk about his glucose monitoring device while having her blood glucose level checked for diabetes with the help of Maria Gomez, background, during a health clinic held at Holy Family Services, a birth center and women’s clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, June 18, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
We don’t talk about that, like who is legal. We probably would be surprised to know that they aren’t. This is something we don’t discuss.”
— Elizabeth, who lives in the Rio Grande Valle and attended a health class at Holy Family Service Inc. last month.
A drop of blood is drawn to measure glucose levels and screen for diabetes during a health clinic at Holy Family Services, a birth center and women’s clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, June 18, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
People here are among the most medically needy in the country.
Nearly half the population is obese. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer and elderly people are more likely to develop dementia. Bladder cancers can be more aggressive. One out of every four people live with diabetes.
As much as a third of the population here doesn’t have health insurance to cover those ailments. And a quarter of people live in poverty, more than double the national average.
Now, many in this region are on a path to develop worse health outcomes as they skip doctors appointments out of fear, said Dr. Stanley Fisch, a pediatrician who helped open Driscoll Children’s Hospital in the region last year.
Simone Payan, a nurse-midwife at Holy Family Services, a birth center and women’s clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, examines Veronica Mendez, 28, who is due with her third child in August, next to Mendez’s husband, Erik Pelagio, 29, and their children, Eleanor Pelagio, 3, and Romeo Pelagio, 5, during her appointment at the center in the Rio Grande Valley, June 17, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. The family, who are from Mexico, have a business visa that doesn’t allow them to enroll in federally-funded health insurance programs like Medicaid. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Patriotic themed dresses are displayed in a store window in downtown McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
White House officials have directed federal agents to leave no location, including hospitals and churches, unchecked in their drive to remove 1 million immigrants by year’s end. Those agents are even combing through one of the federal government’s largest medical record databases to search for immigrants who may be in the United States illegally.
Federal agents’ raids began reaching deeper into everyday life across the Rio Grande Valley in June, just as the area’s 1.4 million residents began their summer ritual of enduring the suffocating heat.
This working-class stretch of Texas solidly backed Trump in the 2024 election, despite campaign promises to ruthlessly pursue mass deportations. People here, who once moved regularly from the U.S. to Mexico to visit relatives or get cheap dental care, say they didn’t realize his deportation campaign would focus on their neighbors.
Women walk through downtown McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A border patrol agent works by a section of the border wall, June 18, 2025, in Mission, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Maria Gomez drives through a colonia, a type of informal neighborhood found in parts of rural Texas, as part of her job as a “promotora,” or community health worker, for Holy Family Services, a birth center and women’s clinic in Hidalgo County, Texas, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
It feels like we’re living in a combat area. Even people like me who have status, I don’t want to go out either, we’re scared. They’re looking for any excuse. If they see you have brown skin or you’re Latino, they’ll take you.”
— Maria Gomez, a community health worker for Holy Family Services, Inc. said in Spanish, through an interpreter.
A field of wild flowers is protected by barbed wire, in a region where many workers are too scared by recent ICE raids in the Rio Grande Valley to work, June 19, 2025, near Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Juanita is hugged by her children, Jose, 15, and daughter Marely, 17, who has Down syndrome, June 17, 2025, during a portrait in Hidalgo County, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Juanita embraces her daughter Marely, 17, who has Down syndrome, June 17, 2025, during a portrait in a colonia, a type of informal neighborhood found in parts of rural Texas, in Hidalgo County, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Terrified of being taken away from her children by ICE agents or police, Maria has begun locking her fence with a chain and padlock, June 18, 2025, at her home in Hidalgo County, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Every day, I pray that the president will have a change of heart.”
— Maria, a mother who is married to an American in south Texas.
The sun sets over a section of the border wall, June 18, 2025, in Mission, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A grave marker in Spanish and flowers are placed at the corner of a farm where reportedly workers have been afraid to show up to work due to fears of ICE raids, in the Rio Grande Valley, June 19, 2025, near Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Juanita poses for a portrait in prayer inside a chapel in the Rio Grande Valley, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Juanita poses for a portrait outside a chapel in the Rio Grande Valley, June 18, 2025, in Weslaco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Noemi, 11, kisses her grandmother, Ofelia, outside their home in a colonia, a type of informal neighborhood found in parts of rural Texas, in Hidalgo County, Texas, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
What did we do to them?”
— Ofelia, a 73-year-old grandmother in Hidalgo County who is the sole caretaker of several grandchildren.
The Associated Press receives support from the National Press Club Journalism Institute’s Public Health Reporting Fellowship, funded by the Common Health Coalition. The AP is solely responsible for all content.This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.
Text from the APNews story, As Trump’s raids ramp up, a Texas region’s residents stay inside — even when they need medical care, by Amanda Seitz and Jacquelyn Martin.
