EL PASO, Texas -- Alfredo Cadena's frustrations started almost two years ago when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raid his Las Cruces home and arrested his wife, Romelia.

Romelia had lived in the U.S. since she was 12 years old and had spent the past 20 years without legal documents. She married Cadena, who’s a U.S. citizen.

“She was with me, and according to this paper, she was OK. At the time, I was fixing her legal status,” said Cadena.

According to government documents, Romelia had been detained in 1998 for re-entering the country illegally. The documents state she told officers she was a U.S. citizen, but Cadena doesn’t believe that’s what truly happened.

Romelia is now in a detention center awaiting deportation to Mexico. She's leaving behind leaving a husband and an 11-year-old son who was born in the U.S.

KFOX asked: “How does it make you feel you're mom is not with you?”

“I feel terrible. There's emptiness in the house. I'm really nervous,” said Ivan Cadena.

Ivan's not alone, and their testimonies will be heard across the country in the coming weeks through the “Family Unity" outreach tour.

In an unprecedented nationwide outreach tour, U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Immigration Task Force, will be joined by Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, as well as Texas' religious community, to spearhead the "Family Unity" outreach tour.

The tour will make stops in 17 cities. It stopped in El Paso Friday at the Templo de Alabanza where several families said their testimony before an audience of at least 100. They were hoping to show the public how immigration policies have torn families apart, and how it’s not only affected immigrants, but U.S. citizens as well.

“We have 5 million American children in this country whose parents have been deported, or are under orders of deportation,” said Gutierrez.

Ivan doesn't know when they'll finally deport his mother, but he can only hope President Barack Obama is listening to his cries for change.

“He (Obama) made promises to bring comprehensive reform. We put our hope in him, and expect he'll respond,” said Gutierrez.

The "Family Unity" outreach tour will make a stop in Dallas Saturday.