HOUSTON — On a sweltering Sunday evening, a South Houston music venue opened its doors. Around 40 punk and ska music enthusiasts trickled in, donning clown makeup, beat up sneakers and T-shirts decorated in political slogans.
Fans chanted as the band took the stage.
“We love you, Omar Compean!”
Offstage, Omar Compean Jr. seemed like any normal 18-year-old. He joked about AI-generated memes with his friends and bandmates, but spoke shyly when he held hands with his girlfriend, Emily Aguirre.
He transformed on the stage. Shredding on his guitar, the frontman for the four-man, ska-punk band, I Hate Myself And I Want To Die (IHMAIWTD), closed his eyes and leaned into the microphone as he belted out profanity-laced lyrics about anti-authoritarianism.
It was his last American show.
‘I never thought [it] would actually happen to me’
For Omar, summer break started as a promise. He’d planned lazy hangouts with his friends and dates with Emily. After two years of performing, the band had hit a new high, booking an 11-show summer tour with stops throughout Arizona, California and Texas. Bookers and band managers reached out afterwards, asking IHMAIWTD to headline more concerts throughout the year.
“We were going to be playing shows literally every single day and making money. Getting our name out there,” Omar said.
Then, in the course of a 45-minute Spanish class, everything changed.
“I was in Spanish [class] and my mom texted me,” Omar told Straight Arrow. “She was like, ‘Something bad just happened. Call me.’”
Omar’s father, Omar Compean Sr., was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, just steps from Omar’s Houston high school in early May. Omar left class, driving around the neighborhood searching for his father. Instead, he found his father’s empty truck on the side of the road, keys still inside.
He spent the rest of the semester in a daze, unable to focus in class. The family searched online databases for information about Omar Sr., finally learning he had been detained at the Montgomery Processing Center in North Houston. Omar Sr.’s charges, according to his son, were that he was in the country illegally; ICE officials did not respond to Straight Arrow’s request for confirmation.
Days after locating Omar Sr., the family learned he had been deported to Zacatecas, Mexico. Growing up, Omar had long heard stories of arrests and deportations, noting how “running from La Migra” became a stereotype for the Mexican community.
“I never thought [it] would actually happen to me,” he said.
He turned to music for comfort, listening to his father’s favorite corridos, or traditional Mexican ballads, nonstop.
Speaking out through song
“I’m being hunted by these pigs wearing blue,” Omar sang-screamed, as strobe lights covered the band in a cerulean wash. The band’s anti-police anthem, “Killing pigs is not a crime” has been a growing hit with crowds that chant the lyrics back as Omar sings. This is not the band’s first, or only, political anthem. IHMAIWTD has consistently penned commentary on politics and inequality.
“That’s what every ska punk song is about: Political s—” Omar said.
At IHMAIWTD’s final concert, recent headlines weighed heavily on attendees’ minds. Alejandro Estrada, a fellow musician and punk fan, came to the show to support the Compean family and call out local leaders, including Houston mayor John Whitmire, who he said has failed to protect Houston’s large immigrant population through the city’s collaborations with ICE.
“This city paints itself [as] a picture of loving its diversity, loving its people, and that love is our strength,” Estrada, 22, told Straight Arrow. “And yet, how can we [say] that when countless innocent people are being captured and killed?”
For older punks like Harvey Melachor and Lee Almaraz, the anger toward national policies is palpable, but not new. At 54 years old, Almaraz has witnessed decades of anti-immigrant rhetoric and the cycle of deportation. “[It] makes me angry and it makes me sad,” Almaraz said. “It’s bulls—.”
Melachor, the former frontman for defunct local punk band Harvey and the Hangovers, has seen history repeat itself. He remembers performing similar songs in 2001, then speaking out against the George W. Bush administration’s war on terror. Despite the generational gap, Melachor has watched prejudice against communities of color persist. Now, with the omnipresence of social media, he said, the “curtain’s been pulled back.”
“You’re seeing what we’re seeing right now,” Melachor said. “A father being torn away from his family for [doing] nothing but existing.”
The bigger picture of Trump’s sweeping immigration policies
Under the Trump administration, stories like the Compeans’ have persisted. Immigration-related arrests, deportations and detentions have made headlines nationwide. In Miami, ICE arrested Matias Pourrain, a 34-year old professional soccer player for the Miami United FC. In January, Rafael Rubio, a New York City council worker, was detained for five months after being arrested during an asylum interview. In July, 18 year-old Alim Garipov was detained at a Houston airport by ICE for nearly 72 hours. Just weeks after Omar Sr.’s arrest, another Houstonian, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, was shot and killed by ICE agents.
READ MORE: ICE targeted a white van in Houston. Data shows 1,600 in the neighborhood: Exclusive
“We’ve seen that the number of people coming to the border has reduced very drastically,” Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told Straight Arrow. “Now, all eyes are on interior immigration enforcement, and it’s been really an all-of-government approach.”
Other agencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as well as local and state police, have increasingly collaborated with ICE, said Putzel-Kavanaugh, largely to share data and information.
Likewise, fewer, further-between arrest statistics have muddied the extent of immigration enforcement in the country. Under previous administrations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regularly published data on deportations, arrests and removals. Now, reports are less frequent and often, less transparent.
“We don’t always know how the number was calculated,” Putzel-Kavanaugh told Straight Arrow. Definitions for statistics aren’t always explained in official reports, leaving analysts with questions.“It just makes it really hard to understand what the state of certain aspects of immigration are, particularly immigration enforcement.”
What happens after an arrest?
In the days after the deportation, the Compean family made a unique decision: reuniting in Zacatecas. They sold their business, a party rental warehouse in Houston, and held garage sales, shipping their most important belongings, including Omar’s instruments, to Mexico.
Born in Galveston, Omar had only visited his parents’ hometown as an infant. Now he will be expected to help out at his family’s ranch.
“I don’t know anything about agriculture, but I’m gonna learn,” Omar said.
Regardless of what his new life throws at him, he knows he is making the right decision.
“I want to be with my dad,” Omar told Straight Arrow. “If that’s how it has to be, well, I guess that’s how it has to be.”
Relocations like the Compeans’ are seemingly rare, though they do happen, said Putzel-Kavanaugh.
“It’s hard to know concretely how people make that choice or how many people are making that choice,” Putzel-Kavanaugh explained. “It’s really highly individual and based on the circumstances surrounding it.”
When Omar told Emily about the move, she said it felt like a bomb dropped.
“At first, I was like, crying every day,” she told Straight Arrow.
She supports his decision to reunite with his father.
“I couldn’t imagine what he has to feel with his dad going [through] all that,” said Joseph “Jojo” Fuentes, Omar’s best friend and bandmate. The pair met in middle school after being assigned a group project together. When Omar started listening to Nirvana, he introduced Jojo to the band too, and the duo decided to form their own music group.
“We lowkey went to the mall and we like, made people sign a petition [saying] Nirvana was the best band,” laughed Omar, as Jojo snickered.
What began as a silly idea grew into a family. The duo adopted two additional members, Devin Aleman and Seth “Seff” Segura, and began playing wherever they could. In time, the group connected with The Guerrillas and Eniightment, two fellow teenaged punk and hardcore bands in the local music scene, and Bleach Paint, a DIY punk T-shirt brand headed by artist Dylan Ward. Diehard fans, like 15 year-old Bruno Flores, became friends: Bruno designed a tour shirt for the band, and the quartet even played a special acoustic set at his birthday party.
Now the group must take a hiatus from live performances.
“They’re awesome people,” said Bruno. “I didn’t like how [ICE is] messing up the community.”
News that Omar is leaving left Bruno “distraught.” He’s not the only one.
“I thought we were off to bigger and better things. But then, getting hit with that information was very heartbreaking,” said Seth, the bassist. “Now we wait for the band to get back together.”
Omar is optimistic about the future, planning to continue producing and writing songs with the band online. He hopes to visit Houston again and potentially host his friends in Zacatecas.
“Honestly, I feel safer knowing that my family can be together and that we can push through together,” he said.
And despite the bittersweet goodbye-for-nows, Omar thinks leaving America is pretty punk, given the circumstances.
Editor’s Note:This story has been updated to reflect the reason for Omar Compean Sr.’s arrest.
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