ICE detained mother, two children at Texas school bus stop after acknowledging mistaken identity

On the morning of April 27, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stopped Maria Betania Uzcategui Castillo near a school bus stop in Alamo Heights, San Antonio, Texas, telling her they were searching for a woman who merely "looked like" her. After acknowledging the mistaken identity, agents pressured Uzcategui Castillo to accept an ankle monitor; when she refused, they detained her along with her stepchildren, 11-year-old Victor Uzcategui-Labrador Jr. and 8-year-old Monserrat Uzcategui-Labrador, both enrolled at Cambridge Elementary School, and transported all three roughly an hour outside San Antonio to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley. The family, who arrived in the U.S. from Venezuela in 2021 under parole and had been granted asylum, had an asylum hearing not otherwise scheduled until 2027.

The detention drew organized local backlash: Alamo Heights parents raised more than $30,000 for the family's legal costs, held a protest demanding their release, and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro and other lawmakers publicly pressed ICE to release them. Immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch filed a habeas corpus petition on the family's behalf.

Updates

2026-05-13 — Federal judge ordered the family's release, finding detention violated due process [3, 4]

U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia of the Western District of Texas granted the family's habeas corpus petition, ruling that "noncitizens are entitled to due process of law" and that their continued detention violated Fifth Amendment protections; he ordered ICE to release the family under conditions no more restrictive than before the detention, with release required by 9:30 a.m. May 14 and ICE required to confirm compliance to the court.

2026-05-14 — Family released after two weeks in ICE custody [4]

Maria Betania Uzcategui Castillo and her two stepchildren were released from the Dilley facility on the morning of May 14, 2026. Rep. Joaquin Castro drove the family home, where they reunited with their father, Victor Uzcategui-Labrador Sr., who had avoided detention by remaining inside their home during the initial enforcement action.