Migrants pray at Kino Border Initiative shelter in Sonora, Mexico after being deported from the United States.Dsc3828
Torrance, California – Federal immigration authorities confirmed Thursday that a fourth-grade student from Torrance Elementary School will be deported to Honduras, along with his father, following a controversial detention in downtown Los Angeles that has rattled a local school community and drawn national scrutiny.
Martir Garcia Lara, 9, had been enrolled at Torrance Elementary since first grade. On May 29, he accompanied his father, Martir Garcia-Banegas, 50, to an immigration hearing in Los Angeles. The hearing, scheduled to check in on the family’s case, instead ended with the immediate detention of both father and son by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The pair were separated and transferred the next day to an immigration facility in Dilley, Texas, where deportation proceedings are now underway.
According to ICE, Garcia-Banegas and his son entered the country illegally on July 10, 2021. A deportation order was issued by an immigration judge in September 2022. Garcia-Banegas appealed, but the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed that case in August 2023. ICE says the family failed to comply with the court’s removal order, which led to their detention.
The explanation that the father and son have exhausted their legal opportunities has done little to ease concerns among teachers and parents at Torrance Elementary, where students returned from Memorial Day break to news that one of their classmates had been taken into custody and transported across state lines.
Community members have begun organizing efforts to support the family, seeking legal assistance and reaching out to elected officials including Representatives Maxine Waters and Ted Lieu, and Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff. The Torrance Unified School District issued a statement acknowledging the situation, emphasizing that while the detention occurred off-campus, every child in their District has a right to education and safety.
The case comes in the middle renewed enforcement actions by ICE under the Trump administration, with courthouses increasingly used as venues for surprise arrests. In California and elsewhere, plainclothes federal agents have waited outside courtrooms to detain immigrants, many of whom have no criminal record and are complying with court orders. Legal advocates argue these practices undermine trust in the legal process and punish those who follow it.
For now, a nine-year-old child remains in federal custody, far from his school, community, and classmates—his fate shaped by a legal system that promised resolution but delivered separation.
