U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro told reporters Tuesday he’s hopeful a legal filing made on behalf of an Alamo Heights family recently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while they waited for a school bus could soon secure their release.
During a downtown press conference, the San Antonio Democrat said he expects a judge to hear the habeas corpus petition — a filing that legally challenges unlawful detention or imprisonment — next week and release the family.
“It’s my hope that they’ll be out relatively soon,” Castro said. “I say ‘relatively soon’ because, remember, we just dealt with the El Gamal family that was [imprisoned] for almost 11 months, and other families that we met with today that have been there for months and months.”
Betania Uzcategui Castillo and her two stepchildren — elementary school students Victor, 11, and Monseratt, 8 —were taken into ICE custody on April 27.
That day also happened to be Betania’s birthday, Austin-based immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said during Tuesday’s presser.
The children’s father walked their mother and two kids to the bus stop but ran back to the house to grab a pair of keys, Lincoln-Goldfinch said, recounting details of the arrest. From the window of his home, the man watched as ICE agents surrounded his wife and children.
The three were then taken to the South Texas Family Residential Center, a lockup for immigrant families located an hour southwest of San Antonio. The facility, shuttered during the previous administration but reopened by the Trump White House, has drawn widespread criticism for its treatment of those swept up in the president’s anti-immigrant crackdown.
“They lied to Betania,” Castro said. “They claimed they were looking for someone else. When she proved to them that she was not that person, they said, ‘Well, let us take you down to the station and put on an ankle bracelet so we can monitor you.’ Instead of taking her to any office, she ended up with her two kids at the Dilley trailer prison.”
Castro told reporters he spent 20 minutes with the family Tuesday afternoon on yet another trip to the Dilley prison camp. During the brief visit, he said Victor sobbed most of the time because he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to see his friends at Cambridge Elementary School before summer vacation started.
“[Victor] is supposed to finish off 5th grade and then go to Alamo Heights junior high school,” Castro said. “Now, they’re uncertain of what their future will bring.”
Castro’s press conference came after the arrest of Uzcategui-Castillo’s family sparked a protest in San Antonio over the weekend demanding their release.
Originally from Venezuela, the family crossed the southern border in December 2021 and filed an asylum claim, according to Castro and Lincoln-Goldfinch. Both Betania and her husband were granted work authorization in the U.S. through 2030 and neither has a criminal record, according to the congressman.
In a statement to the Current, ICE’s San Antonio Field Office disputed those details.
“They illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico on Dec. 4, 2021, and were RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration,” ICE Public Affairs Officer Monica Yoas told the Current via email. “This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”
Alamo Heights ISD officials declined comment on the family, citing restrictions under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Officials also declined to comment on what the district is doing to ensure student safety at bus stops.
Castro said he and his office are aware of ICE targeting bus stops and other sensitive locations in San Antonio.
“I think it’s a shame that ICE is targeting kids at bus stops,” Castro said. “From what we’ve heard at our office, this isn’t just one occasion — it’s happening repeatedly. I was told yesterday that ICE followed somebody to the grocery store, for example.”
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