The experiences of Mexican and Iranian immigrant families are often unheard and unpacked. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how race, ethnicity, and national identity are at the core of the sociopolitical and economic issues that Latino and Iranian families undergo in the United States. Using critical race theory as a framework, this research analyzed the ways in which Mexican immigrant families who were deported, and Iranian-immigrant families living in the United States, have been differently affected by post 9/11 anti-immigrant policies and by zero tolerance policies enacted by the Trump administration. The research question guiding this study was: How do U.S. anti-immigrant policies affect Iranian and Mexican immigrant families and their children’s futures? Our findings uncovered that both groups were negatively affected, however, in different ways. Iranian immigrant parents worried about their socioeconomic status in the United States and their children’s future. They also feared that their relatives might not be able to visit them due to the U.S. Muslim Travel Ban placed on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. On the other hand, Mexican immigrants who lived in the United States undocumented were deported to Mexico. However, after deportation, and responding to the threat of the Trump administration to deport millions more, the Mexican government provided dual citizenship to U.S.-born children of Mexican returnees to facilitate their access to government services, including education. All people and place names are pseudonyms.

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Over 600,000 U.S.-born children are living in Mexico after being forced to leave with their parents after a deportation. Although these children possess transnational funds of knowledge, these go unrecognized by their Mexican teachers, who mostly view transnational students from a deficit perspective. This qualitative study included three transnational students aged 12–17 attending schools in northern Mexico due to parental deportation and used interviews, testimonios and thematic analysis to document their educational experiences and to determine their coping mechanisms and modes of resistance. By doing so, this study intended to highlight the ways in which participants enacted agency. The research questions guiding this study were: How are the educational experiences of transnational youth shaped by parental deportation? What tools do they use to cope? and, how does transnational youth enact transformative and other types of resistance? Based on theories of resistance and the Coyolxayhqui Imperative theory, this research found that the major obstacle transnational students face is the difference in educational systems and teaching practices and lack of academic Spanish proficiency. Deportation posed the added burden of stigmatization and exclusion. Family support was the greatest coping mechanism identified by participants, followed by friendships formed in Mexico, especially with other transnational students, as well as being resilient and purposeful in their pursuit of an education. Participants in this study displayed self-defeating, transformative, and resilient resistance. All people and place names are pseudonyms.

Mixed-status families comprise a growing and (in)visible group of communities on both sides of the US-Mexico border. According to data from the American Immigration Council, 5.9 million US citizen children live with an undocumented parent and are part of mixed-status families (family members with different legal status). It is also estimated that women constitute more than half of all immigrants who are part of the feminization of migration which is tied to the US capitalist economy's historical and contemporary dependence on the labor of immigrant women and women of color, with Mexican immigrants comprising the majority of the undocumented immigrants in the USA. Consequently, US-born children

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