When Yessenia Ruano walks through the door of her home after work, her husband, Miguel, is in the kitchen, shredding chicken with two forks, and her twin daughters are in the living room, playing on an iPad. The sound of “Primer Impacto” fills the background. Ruano opens the fridge to keep the dinner prep going. This doesn’t look like the home of a family on the verge of being uprooted. For 14 years, Ruano searched for ways to create roots here. She is among the millions of immigrants living in the United States who are facing deportation as the Trump administration ramps up the removal of people with no permanent immigration status. She remains in this limbo, bracing for her life to be upended while fighting for a different outcome. Hundreds of thousands more are living just like her, navigating the shifting sands of American immigration policy. She is due back for another appointment with ICE at the end of May. In an interview Tuesday, Ruano said she remains hopeful. She’s also started to sell household items they no longer use on Facebook Marketplace, a small step toward resignation. She hasn’t bought flights to El Salvador for her husband or daughters and hopes she won’t have to. Ruano’s daughters will turn 10 in early June. This year, they’re most looking forward to celebrating their birthday at school, with cupcakes in class, surrounded by their friends, their mom nearby. Ruano’s flight is scheduled to leave the United States the next day. Read the full story through the 🔗 in bio. ✍️: Mel Leonor Barclay, politics reporter 📸: Jamie Kelter Davis for The 19th (fb)

This weekend, a 9,000 square-foot collection of over 250 quilt panels hand-painted by transgender people and their families will be on display at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. as a colorful homage to the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a celebration of trans joy. To design the quilt, the American Civil Liberties Union encouraged trans people and their families across the country to reflect on what freedom means to them and what a “utopian” future could look like for transgender Americans. In response, the pink, white and blue quilt panels — the colors of the trans Pride flag — carry messages of hope, community and self-love. Drawings of butterflies, flowers and birds encircle declarations like “trans folks belong everywhere” and “we have to be visible: we are not ashamed of who we are.” The ACLU and the Gender Liberation Movement co-organized the event, which coincides with the beginning of World Pride on May 17. The installation was inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which was first displayed on the National Mall in 1987 during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. That debut brought half a million people to the Mall to memorialize lives lost to HIV/AIDS; the quilt is still being added to. Now, as the federal government is increasingly attacking trans rights, 258 unique 6-foot-by-6-foot quilt panels celebrating trans lives will be on display at the section of the National Mall located between the National Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Air & Space Museum. “Fascism is tightening its grip on our laws and lives, but we must defiantly affirm that bodily autonomy and access to healthcare is non-negotiable — for trans youth and for all people. This quilt boldly envisions a world where we’re all free, healthy, and fulfilled. We can build that world by defanging hate and demanding that we are all respected in defining ourselves,” said Raquel Willis, co-founder of Gender Liberation Movement in a statement. ✍️: Orion Rummler, LGBTQ+ reporter 📸: Courtesy of the ACLU (fb)