Two elementary faculty college students from Alamo Heights Unbiased College District and their step-mom had been arrested by immigration enforcement officers whereas ready for the college bus early within the morning on April 27.
Close to the intersection of Gault Lane and Lynnette Street the kids’s stepmother, Maria Betania Uzcategui Castillo, was strolling her son Victor Jr. Labrador and daughter Monseratt Labrador to the bus cease after they had been surrounded by immigration officers claiming to look for a girl who “regarded” like her.
After saying they mistook her identification, officers tried to get Maria Betania to comply with an ankle monitor. She refused, they usually detained her alongside along with her kids whereas their father Victor locked himself inside their dwelling to keep away from arrest.
It was Maria Betania’s birthday, mentioned immigration lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.
Now, they’re on the Dilley Integration Processing Heart, about an hour exterior of San Antonio, which has acquired criticism from lawmakers in latest months for being one of many solely ICE facilities that detain kids and for working below detrimental circumstances.
Hailing from Venezuela, the Uzcategui-Labrador household arrived within the U.S. in 2021. They entered below parole, had been granted asylum and made it to each required appointment to maintain their standing.
Their subsequent asylum listening to wasn’t scheduled till 2027, but it surely has been moved as much as Tuesday, the place Lincoln-Goldfinch filed a habeas corpus petition.
Victor Jr., 11, and Monseratt, 8, are enrolled at Cambridge Elementary College. Each college students are very concerned of their colleges: Victor Jr. is a part of the run membership and the gifted and proficient program whereas Monseratt is a part of the curler skating membership.
Phrase unfold rapidly of the household’s detention, and what’s usually a vigorous bus cease is way quieter now, mentioned Leslie Bertolino, an Alamo Heights homeroom mother whose daughter is in the identical class as Victor Jr.
For the reason that arrest, households have expressed concern of leaving their dwelling, even to choose up and drop off their children from faculty. A number of have reported nonetheless seeing immigration officers within the neighborhood.
“Households are working below this nebulous timeline of ‘are we secure?’” Bertolino mentioned.
Now, fellow AHISD dad and mom are rallying behind the Uzcategui-Labrador household and different households who’re nervous that they might even be focused by the federal authorities’s intensified immigration enforcement.
Group exhibits up for neighbors
Bertolino rapidly launched a GoFundMe to assist the Uzcategui-Labrador household pay for authorized bills, setting an preliminary purpose of $4,000 however later growing it to $30,000 after realizing the prolonged course of essential to convey them again. The fundraiser met its purpose on Monday afternoon and has stopped accepting donations.
The arrest additionally sparked a protest over the weekend on the intersection of Loop 410 and Broadway, demanding the discharge of the Uzcategui-Labrador household.
Bertolino has additionally been accumulating grocery reward playing cards and in-kind donations to assist different households who’re too afraid to go away their houses for work or faculty.
For now, the bus cease will probably stay quiet as households wait out the state of affairs.
One other neighbor, Beatrice Herrera, mentioned she noticed the incident unfold that morning after coming back from dropping off her daughter, a kindergarten scholar at Howard Early Childhood Heart.
Herrera tried to assist Betania throughout the interplay as about seven immigration brokers swarmed them.
After the brokers took Betania and her children, Herrera says she saved their faculty baggage for them. A couple of months earlier, Betania had helped Herrera transfer into her residence.
“My daughter would play along with her daughter so we might simply sit exterior and watch.”
However previously week for the reason that household was taken, a number of the neighbors say they’ve been further cautious.
Mother and father are volunteering to maintain an eye fixed out on the college bus cease throughout pick-up and drop-off. Some are additionally carpooling, taking college students to and from class.
“I assist convey my neighbors’ children from the bus within the afternoon, and it’s loopy what number of children used to return out, and now it’s possibly 1 / 4 of them getting on the bus,” Herrera mentioned on Tuesday morning.
Immigrant college students in San Antonio
On Tuesday, a band of federal lawmakers from Texas, Arizona, California and Maine visited the Dilley Integration Processing Heart Tuesday and shared particulars concerning the journey with reporters in San Antonio.
Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) visited the Uzcategui-Labrador household for about 20 minutes, he mentioned.
“The children, as you may think about, had been distraught,” Castro mentioned. “The younger woman talked about how a lot she missed her father… Victor was crying as a result of he felt like he would possibly miss the top of the college yr and never see his pals.”
Victor Sr. has been involved with Castro’s workplace and his lawyer, although is protecting a low profile, specializing in getting again to his household.
“Victor and Maria Betania and the kids have a very robust asylum declare,” based mostly on what occurred to them in Venezuela, mentioned Lincoln-Goldfinch, an Austin-based lawyer representing the household.
Citing federal privateness legal guidelines, Alamo Heights ISD declined to touch upon the problem. Requested concerning the small faculty district’s protocol for coping with exterior regulation enforcement officers on campus, a district spokesperson pointed to a board coverage handbook, which states a college principal ought to confirm an officer’s identification, authority to take custody of a scholar after which ship the scholar.
The coverage additionally says the principal ought to notify the mum or dad, except there’s a “legitimate objection” from an officer.
A small, rich and majority White faculty district, Alamo Heights ISD’s scholar pool has been more and more diversifying in recent times, getting extra immigrant college students enrolled practically yearly.
For the 2024-25 faculty yr, the district reported having 140 immigrant college students, double the variety of immigrant college students it had for the 2022-23 faculty yr, in accordance with state information.
It’s unclear what number of immigrant college students the district has for the present 2025-26 faculty yr as a result of the data is printed by the state each December.
Texas defines immigrant college students as people aged 3 to 21 not born within the U.S. who haven’t attended colleges within the nation for 3 full educational years.
A number of faculty districts have reported, nonetheless, having fewer immigrant college students this yr in comparison with the 2024-25 faculty yr, together with two districts instantly neighboring Alamo Heights ISD.
North East ISD reported having round 3,594 immigrant college students this yr in comparison with over 4,000 for the 2024-25 faculty yr. At San Antonio ISD, there have been about 1,621 immigrant college students this yr in comparison with 1,985 final yr.
College districts don’t ask college students about their authorized standing, however a number of district officers say that the lower in immigrant college students enrolled is due to the Trump administration’s ramped up immigration enforcement efforts.
Photographer Amber Esparza contributed to this story.
