Tracy Gonzalez, a 55-year-old self-described “die-hard Republican,” says she finds herself in an unlikely place this year: She’s “completely torn” over her choice for president.
Gonzalez has backed the GOP candidate in every presidential election for three decades, since she moved from her native Arkansas to Atlanta to be near her father, a staunch conservative. She knows her indecision this time around — and the possibility that she’ll vote for Kamala Harris — would be a tough pill for him to swallow.
“I have visions of my father, bless his heart and may he rest in peace, literally rolling over in his grave,” she said. “I can imagine that he’s probably thinking I’ve lost my mind.”
Now a resident of Tattnall County in rural South Georgia, where Donald Trump won with 74% of the vote in 2020, Gonzalez says she is part of a one-issue household and that issue is immigration. She is married to an immigrant from Mexico who entered the country illegally in 1999. If Trump is elected, he may be deported.
“He’s my life. He’s my partner. He’s my best friend,” she said.
But she believes the economy is better under Trump.
“Do I sacrifice my husband in order to stay afloat in a somewhat decent economy? Or do I sacrifice being able to survive the next four years and keep my husband? Why can’t I have both?” she asked.
When the topic of her love story with Victor Guadalupe comes up, Gonzalez says with a laugh that it started in jail. And no, she quickly clarifies, neither of them was behind bars.
Gonzalez owns a bail bond company and Guadalupe at the time helped supervise live haul crews at area poultry plants. Many of his workers lacked legal status and were ineligible for driver’s licenses. When police arrested them for getting behind the wheel, he’d bail them out.
A love story
Gonzalez and Guadalupe became fast friends and began their romantic relationship in 2005.
Three years later, they ran into trouble. Guadalupe had an encounter with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Savannah. He was placed in removal proceedings and given a date in Atlanta immigration court.
With the help of an immigration attorney, the couple was able to negotiate a temporary suspension of Guadalupe’s deportation. It must be renewed yearly, but it gives Guadalupe access to a work permit and a driver’s license. Still, the suspension could be revoked with a change in government policy, keeping Guadalupe in limbo.
“I’m not lost on how blessed we are to have that,” Gonzalez said.
She and Guadalupe married in 2011, but marriage to a U.S. citizen does not provide a straightforward pathway to legal residency for undocumented immigrants. Acquiring status is possible for most, but the process to do so mandates immigrants return to their native countries for consular interviews and years can pass before they are cleared to return to the U.S.
Many mixed-status couples say that’s a risk they are not willing to take.
Credit: Courtesy of Tracy Gonzalez
Credit: Courtesy of Tracy Gonzalez
Past support for Trump
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump has promised a major shift in federal immigration policy if he’s elected, including a mass deportation program that would be of historic proportions. His running mate, JD Vance, called for unauthorized immigrants to “pack your bags” at a Georgia rally earlier this month
Gonzalez is weighing the sting of that rhetoric against her long-standing conservative values, including opposition to abortion. She also harbors doubts about Harris’ readiness to lead and steer the U.S. economy.
“It’s a do-or-die here and I don’t know which way I’m going yet. I probably won’t know until the day I walk in there and vote,” she said.
When Trump announced his candidacy in 2015 with inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants, Gonzalez said she was “terrified.” But she wound up voting for him. She sat out the 2020 election, deciding she needed a break from politics.
“When I voted for him in 2016, I really didn’t take him serious. Let’s be honest: Trump is a blowhard; he likes to hear himself speak,” she said. “But now in 2024, his statements are a lot wilder, you know, like the mass deportations.”
Gonzalez said sweeping immigration raids could not only impact her marriage, but also the local economy of her agricultural community in South Georgia. Tattnall County is Vidalia onion country and relies heavily on immigrant labor.
‘I’m so stuck’
In August, the Biden administration launched a new immigration program to benefit undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. It sought to allow many undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens to apply for a form of legal status known as parole in place. The recipients are protected from deportation, and they are eligible for work permits and even green cards — a crucial step in the naturalization process.
Immigrant rights advocates described the proposal — which would apply to about 500,000 people — as the most sweeping form of relief for the country’s undocumented population since 2012, when the Obama administration instituted protections for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
Guadalupe doesn’t qualify. That he has entered the country illegally twice (he briefly returned to Mexico in 2006 when his mother was ill) rules him out.
Still, Gonzalez was moved by what she views as a step in the right direction, and hopes the policy could one day be expanded to include her husband.
“The president stood on national television and mentioned us spouses (of undocumented immigrants). We’ve never gotten that kind of attention. Now, they know who we are,” she said.
For Guadalupe, getting on a pathway to residency would bring a sense of belonging.
“It would be a huge blessing to get residency,” he said. “Right now, I always have to be very careful. I don’t go out unless I need to. With residency, I would be able to go to work without fear. I would be able to do many more things that I can’t do now.”
In a blow to mixed-status families, the Biden program ran into immediate legal issues and is on hold.
Gonzalez fears a Trump win could result in the program being definitively scrapped and that Guadalupe could be caught up in a mass deportation.
If she could engineer a candidate she could fully get behind, Gonzalez said it would be someone who could combine Trump’s economic platform with Harris’ willingness to pursue immigration reform, which the vice president has said includes an “earned pathway to citizenship.”
“I’m so stuck,” Gonzalez said.
Earlier this year, the couple broke ground on a house in Mexico in case expanded immigration enforcement forces Guadalupe out of the country.
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