A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Young voters are often worried about their future. Will they be able to buy a home? How will they pay off their student loans? Do they have the money to start a family? The thought process is a little different for some young people from immigrant families. NPR's Saige Miller spoke with two of them.
SAIGE MILLER, BYLINE: Nicole Solis-Sison moved to America when she was 7 years old.
NICOLE SOLIS-SISON: My parents and my immediate family were fleeing government in the Philippines. So we came here to seek asylum.
MILLER: The government was so intent on going after her family that it even asked the U.S. government to deport them back to the Philippines. That's when an agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Services Agency, which has since been renamed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, showed up at her house.
SOLIS-SISON: That's when this particular INS agent suggested that we should file for asylum, given that we were on U.S. soil.
MILLER: After more than two decades navigating the immigration system, Solis-Sison became an American citizen last year. Now at the age of 34, she is voting in her very first election in New York.
SOLIS-SISON: This is, like, such a milestone year for me that I'm a first-time voter. I created my own voter guide and voter diary.
MILLER: Her immigrant experience and the agency that helped find a path for her family to stay in the U.S. are on her mind a lot right now as she gets ready to vote.
SOLIS-SISON: I feel like I do have a weight to protect people who are going through this process who are getting left behind and harmed, because when I tell you - I've only gotten out of it with, like, a sliver of hope.
MILLER: Twenty-four-year-old Deisy Espana of Wisconsin also feels the weight of her family's immigrant history. She's from a mixed-status family. Born in the U.S., she's always been a citizen, but her parents are from Mexico. And while she was growing up, they were undocumented. Espana said she didn't always understand the risks of her parents' undocumented status, like when her parents got pulled over while driving.
DEISY ESPANA: My mom would start, like, doing the sign of the cross or, like, praying. And, like, I never understood, like, what that fear was until I got much older and realized that, you know, they were scared that they were going to get turned over to ICE.
MILLER: Her mom recently obtained a green card. ICE has been in the news a lot recently since President Trump returned to office. Every time Espana encounters someone whose family member has been taken by ICE or reads about an ICE-related death, the same thing runs through her head.
ESPANA: That could have been my dad.
MILLER: Especially now, with the Trump administration's hard-line stance on immigration and the surge of ICE agents arresting people that look like her parents, Espana feels like her vote holds more weight. And she carries more than just her views into the ballot box.
ESPANA: I'm voting for, like, my parents, right? Yeah. I have to do it for my parents, who can't vote.
MILLER: That's her message for other young voters in similar situations - don't just vote for yourself. Vote to protect your family.
Saige Miller, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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