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Earlier this week, Torrance residents were in a hurry to find out what happened to 9-year-old Martir Garcia Lara, a fourth-grade student at Torrance Elementary School.
One day, he simply didn’t show up at school.
Teachers and PTA officials believed he was detained in federal immigration facilities along with his father, but were unable to get a solid answer.
Federal officials confirmed Thursday that the boy and his father were taken into custody May 29 after checking in with federal officials in downtown Los Angeles. The two will be transferred to a Texas immigration facility the next day, with officials banishing them to Honduras.
Parents with the Torrance Elementary PTA sent letters urging residents to reach out to elected officials to strengthen their support for the boys. The PTA had few answers, but it was committed to making sure that the public was aware that they were missing from their community.
“We’re all looking for answers,” Ria Villanueva, a PTA volunteer at Torrance Elementary School, told The Times. “When something like this happens, it shakes us all in our community. There are no children in our schools that we don’t treat as our own.”
The detention is the latest in a string of famous immigration enforcement measures over the past week, part of President Trump’s promised deportation crackdown. A few days ago, immigration agents stormed and arrested a popular San Diego restaurant, causing confrontations with enraged residents. Agents also arrested Chinese and Taiwanese citizens at underground nightclubs in the Los Angeles area.
The boy took his father, Martil Garcia Venegas, 50, on May 29 to an immigration court facility in downtown Los Angeles.
Garcia Venegas arrived in the United States on July 10, 2021 with his son. However, the immigration judge ordered both father and son to be deported to Honduras on September 1, 2022.
The father appealed the decision to the Immigration Appeals Committee on August 11, 2023, but the appeal was dismissed. According to an ICE spokesman, the two did not leave the country as ordered by an immigration judge.
Federal officials initially called the boy Martin Isac Garcia Venegas, but later revealed his full name as Martil Isaac Garcia Lara. According to PTA volunteer Villanueva, he has been attending Torrance Elementary School since first grade.
The boy’s story was first reported by news station KTLA.
A spokesman for the Torrance Unified School District said he knew the news story but could not confirm details. District spokesman Sarah Myers said in an email Wednesday that they were communicating with their father, son and authorities’ relatives to better understand the situation.
By Thursday afternoon, the district had confirmed the Times report, recommending that Martyr is a student in federal custody and that the citizens involved should reach out to elected officials in Washington.
“It is our responsibility as a district to support the families of all students and to link them to resources and support for their continued education and healthy well-being if the families request it, and when, if they request it,” the district said in a statement.
After the father and son were taken into custody by Los Angeles officials, they were transferred to the Dilly Immigration Processing Center in Dilly, Texas. It was not immediately clear whether they had legal representatives.
Courts across the country are the latest targets of Trump’s immigrant crackdown, in which federal agents deployed to arrest individuals after making a scheduled appearance before an immigration judge. In many cases, these immigrants are here less than two years, and attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security are asking them to dismiss the case from deportation proceedings.
Once the judge granted the request, the migrants leaving the court met with federal agents detaining them for quick removal. In Santa Anna and Los Angeles, those agents wore masks, came out of court and surrounded immigrants as they often saw family members crying in distraught and tears.
Their lawyers and supporters say agents are targeting people who are doing what the government asked. Most have no criminal history, and many have children in the United States.
“They do everything we want them to do, but they’re still being detained from the US and removed quickly,” said Melissa Shepherd, director of legal services at the Immigration Defenderslow Center. “It’s causing a lot of confusion. People are really scared.”
A UCLA study found that half of California’s nine million children are part of immigrant families, mostly US citizens.
Torrance and many overseas are worried about the Martyr incident, but that’s just one of many who play in courts around the country, said Jorge Mario Cabrera, communications director with the Alliance of Advocacy Groups for the Rights of Humanitarian Immigration.
“The government has taken all these different approaches to get families and bring people to court. They see which tactics can stick,” says Cabrera, who is unfamiliar with the Martir case.
With the rise in the number of people seized in court, fewer people are hoping to appear at court hearings, Cabrera said.
Martill and his father are being held in a South Texas facility run by private prison corcivic. The facility can accommodate up to 2,400 people and is billed as a family housing centre. The facility was inactive in August 2024, but reopened earlier this year, according to a company announcement.
Times staff writer Rachel Ulanga contributed to this report.
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