To his family, Roberto Villegas was the heart of the household.

“He’s the best father I could have ever asked for,” said his daughter Michelle, who will be entering high school after the summer.

In 2019, Roberto was deported.

“I get a call and he's like, 'I need you to sit down. I need you to just breathe.' He said, "Don't get scared, I just got pulled over by ICE,'” said his wife Raquel.

Raquel says Roberto was once in the U.S. legally, but more than 20 years ago, when he was coming back in the states from Mexico, he said he was a US citizen, when he was not. The penalty for lying about citizenship status is a permanent ban from living in the country. There's no appeals process, no way to fight it. His wife, kids and brothers in the U.S. were stunned.

“It's life-changing and not in a good way, a really important person just gets taken away from you and it's really hard to get accustomed to it,” said Roberto's son Jared, who is 20 years old.

Jared has taken a job to help the family pay their bills.

As the Villegas family learned, immigration laws can be very black and white. According to FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group, 1.7 million Americans have an undocumented spouse.

“The only way to get through this is to change the law,” said Kali Pliegro, the president of an effort to do exactly that. She wants there to be a pathway to citizenship for undocumented spouses with families in the U.S. It's part of the American Families United Bill.

The bill has dozens of Democratic co-sponsors and three Republicans in the house. That imbalance right now is something they’re working to fix. With concerns over border security and letting the wrong people back into the country, the bill’s advocates know this is an obstacle to get more Republicans on board.

“ There's nothing like a, a blanket approval involved. It's a case-by-case basis of judgment, whether that case merits residency,” said Kali.

“That’s why I like this bill, because without a doubt, you can look into my brother and you can see, 'Oh, this guy never had a fail to yield ticket, he paid all his taxes,'” said Roberto’s brother Joel.

This bill would be the only way Roberto could live in the U.S. again.

“When I talk to my senators or representatives, especially here in Texas, their first response is we want to secure the borders. Yes, I want you to secure the borders, but we also need to think about those families who are separated, who are US citizen families,” said Raquel.

As conversations continue about the best way to secure our borders, families stuck in the middle of policy ask for empathy and hope that a middle ground can be achieved.

“I really want people to understand that he isn't a criminal. He's my dad. He is a son. He is a husband. He is a father. And he deserves to be over here,” said Michelle.

The Department of Homeland Security says it's aware of a "small number of recent online threats of violence" connected to Saturday's far-right rally in Washington, D.C.

Its local director said no one wants a repeat of the January 6th insurrection when thousands of rioters stormed the Capitol.

"We do not tolerate hate, violence, or the criminal actions of those who committed the insurrection on January 6th," said director Christopher Rodriguez.

About 700 people are expected to attend the "Justice for J-6" rally in support of the protesters who were arrested after attacking the U.S. Capitol back in January.

As a precautionary measure, temporary fencing has been reinstalled and police have requested that national guard troops remain on standby.

This story was originally reported by Newsy.com.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is stepping down from his post, days after criticizing President Donald Trump over the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Wolf said in a message to staff that he would step down at 11:59 p.m. Monday, even though he had earlier said he planned to remain in his job. He said Pete Gaynor, who ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency, would become the acting homeland security secretary.

The resignation comes a day before Trump is set to visit the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Last week, Wolf asked Trump and all elected officials to “strongly condemn the violence” that took place at the Capitol. Five people died, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer.

Wolf said he has condemned violence on both sides of the political aisle, specifically directed at law enforcement. He tweeted “we now see some supporters of the President using violence as a means to achieve political ends” and called that unacceptable.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the lives of Americans forever.

In a recent poll by USA TODAY/Suffolk University, 60% of 1,000 people surveyed agreed.

Eighty-five percent polled said the terror attacks had a big impact on their generation, while nearly two-thirds said it had a big impact on their own lives.

From technological advances to changes in national security, exactly what has changed in the 20 years since America came under attack?

National Security

Just 11 days after terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the Department of Homeland Security was created.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge was appointed as the first director of the department, which was tasked with overseeing and coordinating a national approach to protect the U.S. against terrorism and future attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security now consists of more than 240,000 employees who are responsible for aviation and border security, cybersecurity and other preparedness measures.

Technology

Technology has seen its fair share of changes in the last 20 years.

"Government agencies and private companies have beefed up their disaster preparedness and telecommunications providers have strengthened their digital infrastructure," wrote Darrell West, senior fellow at Brookings' Center for Technology Innovation and its director, Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, in an online article entitled "How technology and the world have changed since 9/11."

Since 9/11, "the United States realized the importance of mobile communications during terrorist attacks and natural disasters," the article says.

"Steps have been taken to safeguard vital networks, which is a huge advancement since 9/11 when thousands of people in New York, and in the area of the Pentagon bombing had to run and walk for miles to what appeared to be a safe space for shelter," the experts continued. "Back then, we didn’t even have voice-activated internet-enabled navigational tools that could advise pedestrians and drivers of road closures, or other potential road or walking hazards."

In October 2001, the U.S. Patriot Act was enacted, which gave the government more authority to investigate potential threats through surveillance of phone calls, emails and text messages.

"With the advent of smartphones and the prevalence of electronic communications, public authorities also developed new tools for monitoring particular individuals and tracking their physical whereabouts via geolocation data," West and Lee's article says. "Twenty years after the attack, the country continues to debate where to draw the line between promoting personal privacy and protecting national security."

It's easy to wonder if the world's technological advancements had happened sooner, whether 9/11 could have been prevented.

Travel

Remember the days when you could arrive at the airport 30 minutes before your flight and head straight to your gate?

In 2001, that's what travel looked like. Families could come through security to send off loved ones and, even if you didn't have photo ID in your carry-on bag, blades and liquids were allowed.

But on Sept. 11, 2001, 19 hijackers were able to board four different domestic flights and carry out the attacks that killed thousands. That's when air travel changed forever.

The attacks changed the nation "automatically, immediately, into one obsessed, in big ways and small, with protecting its security," historian James Mann wrote in 2018. "The way that 325 million Americans go through airports today started on Sept. 12 and has never gone back to what it was on Sept. 10."

Tougher security measures were introduced when air travel resumed on Sept. 14, 2001, but the comprehensive Aviation and Transportation Security Act was passed into law by Nov. 19, 2001.

Here are some of the changes to air travel in the U.S. since 2001:

• All passengers over 18 need valid government-issued identification to fly, even on domestic flights. Those identifications are checked against passengers' boarding passes.

• The No Fly List was born — a branch of the Terrorist Screening Database noting people banned from boarding commercial aircraft into, out of and inside the U.S.

• The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was introduced in November 2001 and took over all airport security functions.

• Potential weapons like blades, scissors and knitting needles are no longer allowed on board, and airport employees are now better trained to detect weapons or explosives. In 2006, a foiled plot to detonate liquid explosives on multiple transatlantic flights led to the restrictions of liquids, gels and aerosols in carry-on luggage that still exist today.

• Also in 2006, the TSA started requiring passengers to remove their shoes to screen for explosives.

• In March 2010, full-body scanners began to be installed in U.S. airports in addition to metal detectors.

• In July 2017, TSA began requiring all personal electronics larger than a cellphone to be placed in bins for X-ray screening.

In addition, bulletproof and locked cockpits became standard on commercial passenger aircraft within two years of the 9/11 attacks. The Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act became law in 2002 and, in 2003, weapon-carrying pilots started boarding U.S. commercial flights.

Journalism

Michelle Wright, a reporter for sister station WTAE in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, remembers dropping off her son for his first day of preschool on Sept. 11, 2001, and holding her 1-year-old baby at home as she watched the first plane hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

"I was stunned," she said.

By the time she got to work, two other planes had crashed — another at the second tower of the World Trade Center and a third at the Pentagon — and there were reports of a plane down in Shanksville, less than two hours away. She and reporter Mike Clark rushed there, but had limited information about whether all of the crashes were related.

Wright and Clark were some of the first media on the scene.

"We just started going live," she said. "That shift turned into a nonstop week of being there. We immediately knew the significance."

Wright said the WTAE crew stayed in hotels and had to go to local stores for clothes and toiletries. They worked from about 3 a.m. until 8 p.m. each day in a world that didn't have social media and in an area of very poor cell reception.

"The public was glued to the television," she said. "People were just really eager to figure out what was going on."

Wright said in her career as a journalist, she can't remember a time when the information she was reporting was more important. Many broadcast stations dropped commercials during that time to make sure that reporters could relay the latest details.

"People were just waiting to find out what was happening to our country," she said.

Wright acknowledged that many relied on cable networks, morning newspapers and radio for breaking news in 2001. Today, however, many people would turn to their phones for instant information.

And, while social media often houses opinion, speculation and misinformation, it allows the public more access to reporters in today's world.

If an attack of that size took place today, the public may not have found out when a plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, but from a tweet from a passenger saying their plane had been hijacked.

Instead of circulating stories about passengers rushing the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93 to confront hijackers before the plane, video or photos of the actual encounter may have been posted online in today's world.

Camera footage would also show a clearer picture of the horror of the attacks, the victims and the aftermath.

In 2001, television news crews made editorial decisions not to show footage of people leaping or falling to their deaths, while networks eventually stopped showing reruns of planes striking the towers to prevent children from thinking the attacks were happening again.

Social media doesn't have that type of editorial censorship.

"As panic-inducing as it was and as tragic an experience it was historically in this country, had the current technology been around in 2001, I think you would have had something far more heart-wrenching," said David Friend, author of "Watching the World Changes: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11."

Wright said her experience covering the story of United Flight 93 taught her that passing along information to viewers allows them to make decisions, but also make a difference.

"Knowledge is power," she said. "And it's empowering."

She'll also never forget the moment the loved ones of the passengers and crew of Flight 93 were bussed to the crash site for the first time. Without cell phones capturing footage or even cameras rolling, members of the community lined roughly 30 miles of roadway from where the families were housed to the strip mine where the crash occurred to offer their condolences and support.

"Everyone at the site just froze," she said. "It was a powerful moment. All of our lives were changed."

The Associated Press and CNN contributed to this report.

The U.S. military is considering "creative ways" to get Americans and others into the Kabul airport for evacuation from Afghanistan amid "acute" security threats, Biden administration officials said, and the Pentagon on Sunday ordered six U.S. commercial airlines to help move evacuees from temporary sites outside of Afghanistan.

At the one-week mark since the Taliban completed its takeover of the country, the U.S.-directed airlift from Kabul continued Sunday even as U.S. officials expressed growing concern about the threat from the Islamic State group. That worry comes on top of obstacles to that mission from the Taliban, as well as U.S. government bureaucratic problems.

President Joe Biden planned to provide a public update on Afghanistan later Sunday. He also was meeting with his national security team. Afghanistan will be the chief topic of discussion when Biden and leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations meet virtually on Tuesday.

"The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and something we’re focused with every tool in our arsenal," said Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.

Sullivan said on CNN that 3,900 people had been airlifted out of Kabul on U.S. military flights over the past 24 hours. A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public, said those people were flown on a total of 23 flights — 14 by C-17 transports and nine aboard C-130 cargo planes.

That represents an increase from 1,600 flown out aboard U.S. military planes in the previous 24 hours, but remains far below the 5,000 to 9,000 that the military says it has the capacity to airlift daily. Sullivan also said about 3,900 people were airlifted on non-U.S. military flights over the past 24 hours.

The Biden administration has given no firm estimate of the number of Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Some have put the total between 10,000 and 15.000. Sullivan on Sunday put it at "several thousand."

The British military said Sunday another seven people had been killed in the unceasing crush of crowds outside the airport. The U.S. military took control of the airport for evacuations a week ago as the capital fell to the Taliban. But Taliban forces controlling the streets around the airport, and the throngs of people gathering outside in hope of escape, have made it difficult and dangerous for foreigners and their Afghan allies to get through.

Republicans in Congress stepped up their criticism of Biden's response. "If the Taliban is saying that Americans can travel safely to the airport, then there is no better way to make sure they get safely to the airport than to use our military to escort them," GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, an Army veteran, said on ABC.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that as Biden's Aug. 31 deadline for ending the evacuation operation approaches, he will recommend whether to give it more time. Tens of thousands of Americans and others have yet to be flown out of the country.

Austin's interview with ABC aired Sunday but was taped Saturday. In a notice Sunday, the State Department urged people seeking to leave Afghanistan as part of an organized private evacuation effort not come to the Kabul airport "until you have received specific instructions" to do so from the U.S. Embassy’s flight organizer. The notice said that others, including American citizens, who have received specific instructions from the embassy to make their way to the airport should do so.

Austin said the airlift would continue for as long as possible.

"We’re gonna try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out," Austin said in the interview. "And we’ve got — we continue to look at different ways to — in creative ways — to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield." He later said this included non-Americans who qualify for evacuation, including Afghans who have applied for Special Immigrant Visas.

Austin noted that the U.S. military on Thursday had used helicopters to move 169 Americans into the airport from the grounds of a nearby hotel in the capital. That is the only announced instance of U.S. forces going beyond the airport to get evacuees.

Ryan Crocker, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan under Presidents George W, Bush and Barack Obama, told CBS that Biden’s management of the withdrawal was "catastrophic" and had unleashed a "global crisis."

A central problem in the evacuation operation is processing evacuees once they reach other countries in the region and in Europe. Those temporary waystations, including in Qatar, Bahrain and Germany, are sometimes reaching capacity, although new sites are being made available, including in Spain.

In an attempt to alleviate that, and to free up military aircraft for missions from Kabul, the Pentagon on Sunday activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. The Defense Department said 18 aircraft from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, Omni Air, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines will be directed to ferry evacuees from interim waystations. The airlines will not fly into Afghanistan. The six participating airlines have agreed to assist for a little less than two weeks, which roughly coincides with the currently planned duration of the airlift, which is to end Aug. 31.

The civil airline reserve system was last activated in 2003 for the Iraq War. The commercial airliners will retain their civilian status but the military's Air Mobility Command will control the flights.

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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Ellen Knickmeyer, Hope Yen and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.