Minors deported by ICE share their stories

Martir Garcia Lara, 10, is among at least five children and teens deported with their parents since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to advocates. Some had lived in the U.S. for years, attending American schools until their sudden removal. Knewz.com has learned that instead of joining his classmates for school, Martir was with his father at a downtown Los Angeles immigration hearing, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested them.

Martir and his father entered the U.S. illegally

Trisha McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said his father, Martir Garcia-Banegas, 50, illegally entered the United States from Honduras with his son in 2021. She added that an immigration judge ordered them to be “removed to Honduras” in September 2022. “They exhausted due process and had no legal remedies left to pursue,” McLaughlin said in a statement. According to reports, Garcia Lara is currently in Honduras without his teacher, classmates and a brother who lives in Torrance. “I was scared to come here. … I want to see my friends again. All of my friends are there. I miss all my friends very much,” the 10-year-old said in a statement to reporters.

Fear lingers for many immigrant students

Sara Myers, a spokesperson for the Torrance Unified School District, said Garcia Lara’s absence “rippled beyond the school walls, touching the hearts of neighbors and strangers alike, who united in a shared hope for his safe return.” Although ICE has not conducted raids on school grounds, teachers and administrators say fear is growing among immigrant families. A Reuters review found the Trump administration has doubled daily arrest rates compared with the last decade. President Donald Trump recently signed a $75 billion increase in ICE funding under the One Big, Beautiful Bill to expand arrests and deportations.

Deportation of minors across the U.S.

In Maryland, Montgomery Blair High School students staged a walkout after a classmate was deported to Guatemala. Romero Lira and Senaya Asfaw, leaders of a student group on campus called Students For Asylum and Immigration Reform, organized the walkout. “There’s been unrest, confusion and fear since the new administration came in. … There’s been a lot more ICE sightings in general, not on campus, but in the community,” Asfaw said in a statement. Lira said the student’s deportation “brought something that felt so far away to our doorstep.” In Detroit, 18-year-old high school senior Maykol Bogoya-Duarte was deported to Colombia just three and a half credits shy of graduation. Arrested during a traffic stop in May, he was transferred to ICE custody after officers discovered his undocumented status. “On the day the rest of his classmates were starting summer and graduating, he was in a detention center,” said his attorney, Ruby Robinson. In New Orleans, ICE deported two families in April including U.S. citizen children. The American Civil Liberties Union states that the removals occurred within 24 to 72 hours of detention, denying parents the time to arrange for their children to stay. DHS insists parents choose whether their children accompany them, but advocates like Sirine Shebaya of the National Immigration Project dispute the claim. In Los Angeles, 17-year-old honors student Nory Sontay Ramos was preparing for her senior year when ICE detained her and her mother during an immigration appointment. Deported to Guatemala on July 4, she said, “I feel really sad because I was hoping to graduate with my friends.”

White House rejects claims

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson rejected claims that ICE targets children, calling such reports “a fake narrative.” She said in many cases, “the children’s parents were illegally present in the country … and when they were going to be removed, they chose to take their children with them.” The Department of Homeland Security reiterated that “parents, who are here illegally, can take control of their departure.” In the New Orleans cases, the agency stated that both mothers had prior removal orders and voluntarily brought their U.S. citizen children to Honduras. However, immigration advocates counter that some parents were never given the choice, and the speed of deportations left families with no options. Erin Ware, a senior associate at Ware Immigration, called the process “illegal, unconstitutional and immoral … beyond unconscionable.”

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