Earlier this week, residents in Torrance were scrambling to find out what happened to 9-year-old Martir Garcia Lara, a fourth-grader at Torrance Elementary School.
One day, he simply didn’t show up for school.
Teachers and PTA officials believed he was being held at a federal immigration facility with his father but could not get firm answers.
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 were transferred to an immigration facility in Texas the following day, and officials plan to deport them to Honduras.
Parents with Torrance Elementary’s PTA sent out a letter asking residents to reach out to elected officials to drum up support for the boy. The PTA had few answers but was committed to making sure the public was aware that he was missing from their community.
“We’re all searching for answers,” Torrance Elementary PTA volunteer Ria Villanueva told The Times. “When something like this happens, it shakes all of us in the community. There’s not a child at our school that we don’t treat as our own.”
The detention is the latest in a string of high-profile immigration enforcement actions over the last week, part of President Trump’s promised deportation crackdown. A few days ago, immigration agents raided a popular San Diego restaurant and made arrests, sparking a standoff with outraged residents. Agents also arrested Chinese and Taiwanese nationals at an underground nightclub in the Los Angeles area.
The boy accompanied his father, Martir Garcia-Benegas, 50, to an immigration court facility in downtown Los Angeles on May 29, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Garcia-Benegas arrived in the United States on July 10, 2021, with his son. But an immigration judge ordered both the father and son to be deported to Honduras on Sept. 1, 2022.
The father appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals on Aug. 11, 2023, but the appeal was dismissed. The two did not leave the country as ordered by the immigration judge, according to an ICE spokesperson.
Federal officials initially referred to the boy as Martin Issac Garcia-Benegas but later clarified his full name as Martir Isaac Garcia Lara. He’s attended Torrance Elementary school since first grade, according to Villanueva, the PTA volunteer.
The boy’s story was first reported by news station KTLA.
A spokesperson with Torrance Unified School District said they were aware of the news story but could not confirm the details. They were communicating with relatives of the father and son and authorities to better understand the situation, district spokesperson Sara Myers said in an email on Wednesday.
By Thursday afternoon, the district confirmed The Times’ reporting that Martir was the student who was in federal custody and recommended that concerned citizens reach out to elected officials in Washington, including U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), along with Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.).
“It is our responsibility as a District to support the families of every student and connect them to resources and assistance for their continued education and healthy wellbeing, if, and when, a family requests it,” the district said in a statement.
After the father and son were detained by officials in Los Angeles, they were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas. It was not immediately clear if they had legal representation.
Courthouses across the country have become the latest target of Trump’s immigration crackdown, where federal agents have been deployed to arrest individuals after they make their scheduled appearances before an immigration judge. Often those immigrants have been here less than two years, and attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security ask to dismiss the case from deportation proceedings.
When the judge grants the request, immigrants who leave the court have been met by plainclothes federal agents who take them into custody for expedited removal. In Santa Ana and Los Angeles, those agents wore masks, surrounded migrants as they came out of court and often left family members watching distraught and in tears.
Their attorneys and advocates say agents are targeting the people that are doing exactly as the government asked. Most have no criminal records, and many have children in the United States.
“They are doing everything that we ask them to, and yet are still being detained and expeditely removed from the U.S.,” said Melissa Shepard, director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “It’s causing a lot of confusion. Folks are really fearful.”
Half of California’s 9 million children are part of immigrant families, with most being U.S. citizens, according to a study from UCLA.
Although many in Torrance and abroad are worried about Martir’s case, it’s just one of many playing out in courtrooms across the country, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, director of communications with the advocacy group Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.
“The government is taking all of these different approaches to getting families, getting people at courthouses, and they’re seeing which tactics can stick,” said Cabrera, who was not familiar with Martir’s case.
The increase in people being seized at courthouses has resulted in fewer people wanting to appear at their court hearings, Cabrera said.
Martir and his father are being held at a facility in the south of Texas that is operated by private prison corporation CoreCivic. The facility can house up to 2,400 people and is billed as a family residential center. The facility was inactive in August 2024 but was restarted earlier this year, according to an announcement from the company.
Times staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.
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