San Antonio protesters seek release of Alamo Heights family taken by ICE at school bus stop

San Antonio residents protest Sunday against the ICE detainment of an Alamo Heights family. Credit: Michael Karlis

Roughly 50 protesters gathered Sunday afternoon at the Loop 410 and Broadway intersection to demand the release members of a local family detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week while they waited for a school bus.

Victor Uzategui-Labrador Jr. and Monseratt Uzategui-Labrador, both students at Alamo Heights ISD’s Cambridge Elementary School, were taken by ICE while waiting for their school bus on April 27. Their stepmother, Betania Uzategui Castillo, was also taken.

Betania Uzategui Castillo, her husband and two stepchildren arrived in the U.S. from Venezuela in 2021 and turned themselves in to Border Patrol officers after crossing the border, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. The family is seeking U.S. asylum, and the parents have valid authorization to remain in the country through 2030, the congressman’s office also said.

“It’s clear that ICE is not here to make our neighborhoods safer when they are kidnapping innocent children on their way to school,” said Toru Ramierez, an organizer for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which organized Sunday’s protest. “Trump’s and [the Department of Homeland Security’s] lies are on full display yet again. ICE thugs don’t protect people, they terrorize them. Specifically, they racistly target and terrorize our neighbors for not being white.”

ICE’s San Antonio Field Office didn’t immediately respond to the Current’s request for comment about the family’s detainment.

The Uzategui-Labrador children and their stepmother are being held at the controversial South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, roughly an hour Southwest of the Alamo City, according to PSL officials.

The Dilley prison camp, the nation’s only detention site for family migrant families, has become a political flashpoint during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Prisoners and their advocates allege detainees face substandard conditions, including moldy food, foul-smelling water, a lack of medical care and extended lockup periods, which can last months beyond those authorized under federal rules.

“There are no criminals at Dilley,” Castro, who’s been a vocal critic of the operation in Dilley, previously told the Current. “None of those people has committed a crime.”

Leslie Bertolino, the homeroom parent for Victor Uzategui-Labrador’s class at Cambridge Elementary, has joined other Alamo Heights ISD parents in setting up a GoFundMe to cover the the family’s legal fees.

The online fundraiser is about $1,000 short of its $30,000 goal as of press time.

“The family is lawfully present in the United States, has no criminal record and is awaiting an asylum hearing scheduled for 2027,” the GoFundMe states.

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