Feb 25, 2016 3 min read

Listening to some Republican presidential candidates, you might think President Obama has not just done little to halt illegal immigration but has actually encouraged it. But nothing could be further from the truth.

From the time he took office in 2009, according to Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics, Obama’s government deported more than 2.5 million people. That’s a 23 percent increase over the years when George W. Bush was in the White House. The president is now on pace to deport more people than the sum of all 19 presidents who governed the United States from 1892-2000.

The pace of deportations increased as immigration agents, in a new effort launched in January, rounded up hundreds of women and children fleeing violence in Central America.

The collateral damage from this popular get-tough-on-illegal-immigrants offensive can be heartbreaking. Kai Ryssdal, on his “Marketplace” radio program on NPR earlier this month, told the story of how the lives of a family from El Paso, Texas, whose lives were torn apart by immigration policy.

Eusebio Martinez, 44, was born in El Paso and works at Sam’s Club there for $11 an hour. His wife, Maria, also 44, was born in Juarez, Mexico, but lived in El Paso since her parents brought her there when she was 4 years old. The couple have three grown children and seven grandchildren, and all of the family except Maria are U.S. citizens. And all of them live in El Paso, except for Maria, who was deported last year after she was caught by immigration agents after a traffic stop.

After Maria was deported, Eusebio had to leave their apartment and move in with his mother. He dedicates a huge chunk of his day walking to and from El Paso and Juarez, where Maria now lives. He walks across the border bridge almost every day to visit her, sometimes waiting as long as four hours to get back through U.S. Customs.

Maria began the process to be granted legal residency but did not complete it. A brain tumor required five surgeries, leaving her unable to work because of the possibility of more seizures.

Maria and her husband began the paperwork for her to re-enter the United States, but they believe it will be at least five to 10 years before her case is considered.

Maria and Eusebio have been together for 31 years – since seventh grade. “She’s been through a lot,” Eusebio said. “We make the best of it. That’s all we have to do – just the best of it.”

This is what’s happening under the current administration. It’s difficult to imagine what might occur under a president who orders a military-style round-up and deportation of all the undocumented.

From the tiny house on a dusty street in Juarez where she now lives, Maria Martinez can see the high-rise buildings of El Paso. “Sometimes I just stand at the door and look towards home,” she told Ryssdal.

The wall many Americans think should be built would block that view of home, not just for Maria but for hundreds of thousands like her.

(To hear Kai Ryssdal’s Feb. 4 report, “My Economy: Life Between Two Countries,” visit Marketplace.org.)