ORLANDO, Florida: The 16-year-old American daughter of a US Marine held back tears as long as she could Friday before her family was split in two.
Her mother, Alejandra Juarez, was finally leaving for Mexico, rather than be sent off in handcuffs, after exhausting all options to stop her deportation.
“My mom is a good person. She’s not a criminal,” Pamela said, cursing at the immigration agency before her mother checked in for her flight from Orlando International Airport.
Alejandra and Temo Juarez, a naturalized citizen who runs a roofing business, quietly raised Pamela and their 9-year-old daughter, Estela, in the central Florida town of Davenport until a 2013 traffic stop exposed her legal status.
Afterward, she regularly checked in with US Immigration and Customs officials, which typically went after higher-priority targets like people with criminal records.
Temo didn’t figure his vote for President Donald Trump would affect them personally. That was before the enforcement of Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy toward illegal immigration.
Now, the Juarez family will be divided in two: Estela will join her mother in Mexico after she gets settled, while Temo cares for Pamela and pays the bills.
Alejandra, 39, petitioned to become a citizen in 2001 but was rejected because she was accused of making a false statement at the border when she sought asylum in 1998, attorney Richard Maney said. He said she was asked about her citizenship and told authorities she had been a student in Memphis, Tennessee for a short time, so border officials apparently thought she was falsely claiming to be an American citizen.
“This is not going to be the last case like this,” Maney said. “This is potentially the first of many. There are many military spouses in the same situation.”
US Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., who couldn’t get the votes in Congress for legislation to allow Juarez to remain, called her situation disgraceful.
“We’re not going to give up,” he told her with a hug at the airport.
“It’s an absolute disgrace by the Trump administration to be deporting a patriotic spouse,” Soto said. “Her husband, Temo, served in the Marines ... while she was at home on the home-front, raising two young women. What justice does this serve?“
Alejandra ultimately decided to “self-deport” to Mexico, rather than turn herself in to be detained and then deported. After 20 years in the United States, she no longer has family or friends in the country, so she chose Merida, a city in the Yucatan where a small community of deported military spouses might help her.
Emotionally spent, she wiped her own tears behind sunglasses and stroked Pamela’s hair while gripping Estela, who stood by her side. Temo said he preferred not to talk before they were all escorted through security for their final goodbyes.
A reporter asked what she would say to the president. Alejandra said she’d ask how Trump could let this happen, since he “always says he loves the military and he’s doing everything for the military.”
“My husband fought for this country three times. The administration, yourself, you think you are punishing me. You’re not just punishing me,” she said, referring to her family. “I hope this make him happy. And I really pray that God will forgive him.”
Facing deportation, US Marine’s wife leaves for Mexico
Facing deportation, US Marine’s wife leaves for Mexico
- It’s an absolute disgrace by the Trump administration to be deporting a patriotic spouse
- "My husband fought for this country three times"
World copper rush promises new riches for Zambia
CAPE TOWN: Five years after becoming Africa’s first Covid-era debt defaulter, Zambia is seeing a dramatic turnaround in fortunes as major powers vie for access to its vast reserves of copper.
Surging demand from the artificial intelligence, green energy and defense sectors has exponentially boosted demand for the workhorse metal that underpins power grids, data centers and electric vehicles.
The scramble for copper exposes geopolitical rivalries as industrial heavyweights — including China, the United States, Canada, Europe, India and Gulf states — compete to secure supplies.
“We have the investors back,” President Hakainde Hichilema told delegates at the African Mining Indaba conference on Monday, saying that more than $12 billion had flowed into the sector since 2022.
The politically stable country is Africa’s second-largest copper producer, after the conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo, and the world’s eighth, according to the US Geological Survey.
The metal, needed for solar panels and wind turbines, generates about 15 percent of Zambia’s GDP and more than 70 percent of export earnings.
Output rose eight percent last year to more than 890,000 metric tons and the government aims to triple production within a decade.
Mining is driving growth that is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to reach 5.2 percent in 2025 and 5.8 percent this year, which places Zambia among the continent’s faster-growing economies.
“The seeds are sprouting and the harvest is coming,” Hichilema said, touting a planned nationwide geological survey to map untapped deposits.
But the rapid expansion of the heavily polluting industry has also led to warnings about risks to local communities and concerns of “pit-to-port” extraction, in which raw copper is shipped directly abroad with little domestic refining.
’Dramatic new chapter’
“We need to be aware of the potential for history to repeat itself,” said Daniel Litvin, founder of the Resource Resolutions group that promotes sustainable development, referring to the colonial-era scramble for Africa’s resources.
There is a risk that elites will be enriched at the expense of the broader population, while “narratives of partnership” offered by major powers can mask underlying self-interest, he said.
Chinese firms have long dominated the sector in Zambia and control major stakes in key mines and smelters, cementing Beijing’s early-mover advantage.
Another major player is Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, Zambia’s largest corporate taxpayer.
Investors from India and the Gulf are expanding their footprint, and the United States is returning to the market after largely pulling out decades ago.
Washington, which has been stockpiling copper, this month launched a $12 billion “Project Vault” public-private initiative to secure critical minerals, part of an effort to reduce reliance on China.
In September, the US Trade and Development Agency announced a $1.4 million grant to a Metalex Commodities subsidiary, Metalex Africa, to expand operations in Zambia.
“We are at the beginning of what is going to unfold to be a dramatic new chapter in the way that the free world sources and trades in critical minerals,” US energy secretary adviser Mike Kopp said at Mining Indaba.
Sweeping US tariffs introduced last year helped send copper prices soaring to record highs, as companies rushed to buy both semi-finished and refined stocks.
Cost of rush
“The risk is that this great power competition becomes a race to secure supply on terms that serve markets and not the people in producer countries,” said Deprose Muchena, a program director at the Open Society Foundation.
Despite its mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Zambia’s 21 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.
“The world is waking up to Zambia’s copper. But Zambia has been living with copper and its consequences for a century,” Muchena told AFP.
Environmental damage caused by mining has long plagued Zambia’s copper belt.
In February 2025, a burst tailings dam at a Chinese-owned mine near Kitwe, about 285 kilometers (180 miles) north of Lusaka, spilled millions of liters of acidic waste.
Toxins entered a tributary feeding the Kafue, Zambia’s longest river and a major source of drinking water. Zambian farmers have filed an $80 billion lawsuit.
“Whether this boom is different depends on whether governance, rights, and community agency are at the center, not just supply chain security,” Muchena said.
