Alejandra Espinoza's Brother Deported by ICE: Which One?

Alejandra Espinoza is speaking out about a painful family tragedy: her brother has been deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after living in the United States for nearly three decades.

In an emotional interview with Las Top News, Espinoza revealed that her brother was detained by ICE several months before being sent to Tijuana México. “Sometimes people think that celebrities live in bubbles, exempt from it all; that nothing ever happens to them or touches their lives… It would be impossible to find anyone more empathetic than you—especially since you lived through it yourself. People simply cannot imagine that you carry the very same pain they endure,” told Espinoza to Las Top News.

She continued: “You know, people often assume that just because you work in television, you didn’t have a life before that.”

Espinoza comes from a very large family. She has a total of nine siblings (she is the seventh of ten children), six sisters and four brothers. Notable among her siblings are Haydee, who is a nurse, and her brother Miguel Ángel, who has participated in reality competition shows.

She doesn’t revealed the name of her brother that was deported. But she shares that “I remember clearly when my brother crossed over here—to the United States. I must have been about ten years old at the time. He came over, and we didn’t see him for something like twelve or thirteen years; we could only see him from a distance. The point I’m making is this: no one can *tell* me about the stories people share—about what they are currently living through and suffering. They can’t tell me what that feels like, because I already know. I know what it feels like when a family member—someone close to you—leaves home, and you don’t see them for many years; and then, once they’re finally on the other side, they get deported. I mean, we didn’t see him for ten or twelve years; then, once we were finally able to get our papers sorted out, we could see him again; and now, with this whole situation, he has to go back.”

So, obviously, my mom, my dad, his children, and his wife are going thru a rough time; but we are a super close-knit family. This past Christmas, we all went to Tijuana to spend the holiday with him there—and well, we’re having to do things a bit differently now. We’ve had to adjust the way we celebrate holidays and everything else, given where he is right now—but it’s okay. Like I tell you—and I say this to my mom all the time—the important thing is that he had a place to go. Because there are so many people who do end up going back to their home countries, but they’re completely lost—they have no family, nothing at all. I tell her: ‘Mom, I mean, considering the bad situation, it’s really not *that* bad—it could be much worse.’ I mean, it’s not *that* bad because he has a place to stay, his family is nearby, and his children are able to cross the border to visit him. So, trying to always find the positive amidst the bad things happening to us is truly the only way to survive.”

“The importance of family. Family—both here and there—and the knowledge—for anyone going through it—that there is someone waiting for them somewhere. That is important. Super important,” added Espinoza

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