After his wife was detained by ICE, a father turns to a Detroit school staffer to help reunite his family

When I met Hector Marin and his six children at the end of May, they seemed like a happy family.

One son sprayed and coaxed his 3-year old sister’s exuberant curls into a tidy half pony tail. It’s something her mother would ordinarily do, but it had been three months since they saw her.

In February, Marin’s wife Osmary Garcia dropped their younger children off at their elementary school in Detroit one day – and didn’t return.

“I drove around the places that she normally would go to for errands trying to look for her,” Marin said through a translator. By the time he located her empty, locked truck, he said his wife called. She’d been arrested by immigration officers.

They had never imagined their family would face immigration enforcement. Fleeing turmoil in Venezuela, they entered the United States legally through a Biden-era initiative to use an app – the CBP One app – to schedule an inspection appointment and gain legal entry.

“We really didn't have any concerns,” Marin said. “We were just going about our lives with no problems – until that day where she was arrested.”

Through their asylum applications and temporary protected status, Marin and Garcia were able to get drivers’ licenses and work permits. They knew that President Donald Trump ramped up immigration enforcement – they just didn’t think they would be targeted because they arrived legally.

The family didn’t know that the Trump administration revoked the legal status for migrants who entered the country using the CBP One app and terminated the asylum program that had granted them admission while their case made its way through immigration courts.

“We were afraid to leave the house”

Immigration officers took Garcia to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan. So many other detainees she met there had similar applications and documents as her family did so Garcia began to worry what would happen to their children – ages 3 to 19 – if Marin got detained too.

“We were never afraid before, but after she was detained and then we were afraid to leave the house,” he said.

Marin had made a decent living through his car, working for apps like Lyft and DoorDash. Staying in meant that his income came to a halt.

For a couple of months, they got by using savings and having groceries and other necessities delivered to them.

But the money ran out quickly. The family didn’t have a lawyer or many close connections. Then, Marin remembered a flier in one of his kid’s backpacks.

The flier mentioned an event where someone who worked for the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) would be offering guidance at a church every Thursday evening.

He took the risk and went to the event. He said there was a huge line, and by the time he made his way up to Kristen Plonsky, a Health Hub coordinator for schools in Southwest Detroit, the event was over. Marin told him as much as he could about the family’s predicament and left her his number.

“I didn’t have anything to offer on the district side of things”

DPSCD launched its Health Hub program in 2023 to connect student families with existing resources for everything from rental assistance and food pantries to legal aid and medical care.

Beenish Ahmed

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Michigan Public

Plonsky joined the program’s Southwest hub when it first launched, and was eager to use her Spanish-language skills to assist families. At first, she said, the needs they brought were in line with those her colleagues across the city handled. But that changed when the Trump administration took office and began to make good on its promise to deport millions of people without permanent legal status.

The reality of ramped-up immigration enforcement hit home when students at Western High School – Plonsky’s work site – were first arrested in November.

“That was a huge wake up call for everybody,” Plonsky recalled. “Since then, most of my job has been in some way related to … the increased presence of immigration enforcement.”

Four current and former students were detained by immigration officers over the course of the school year, and many more parents were put into lock up.

But beyond directing families to legal resources or food pantries, Plonsky felt there was little she could do to help them navigate all the complexities of the immigration system.

“I didn't have anything to offer on the district side of things,” she said. “I have some shelf-stable food items, some hygiene products. I can give those to him if I want to drive to go do it, which is outside of my job responsibility. But I would do it – I did do it.”

Plonsky went above and beyond her job to do more than that, though. Whenever a family came to her, she made calls, tracked down information, and developed a solid understanding of the notoriously complex immigration system.

She said she was able to help a recent arrival – who had just given birth – get access to benefits for her U.S. citizen baby. She helped a father in immigration detention prove he shouldn’t have to pay child support for the kids he longed to see.

“It sounds so crazy that I even have to say it but, these are not criminals,” Plonsky said, refuting the Trump administration’s repeated claims that it’s apprehending the “worst of the worst” through its immigration enforcement efforts. “These are not, oftentimes, even people with active removal orders.”

Having spent much of the last school year helping families navigate the immigration system, Plonsky finds it frustrating to hear facile remarks about those who don’t have permanent legal status.

“I've heard the narrative, ‘You should have just come here legally,’” she said, as an example. “I don't think a single person who has ever said that sentence could tell me what is the legal way, because if they did know, they would know how complicated and convoluted it is. And even the people who are in those pathways and have done it the right way, like they're saying they should, are getting taken" into custody by immigration officers.

At the end of the school year, Plonsky left her job as a Health Hub coordinator. It’s not that she wanted a change; her partner matched with a medical residency in a different state and she’ll be moving from Detroit to stay with him.

Courtesy of Hector Marin

Hector Marin and his children decided to leave so they could all be together too. He said his wife was really struggling when she was detained at North Lake. She spent most of her time with their children, and Marin said she had always lived for them.

“Whenever she calls, it’s the same thing: They cry because they miss her so much, Marin said. “I cry too; we’re the same.”

“We still love the country”

The family of eight had been living a decent life in Detroit. Marin worked a lot but was able to make enough money to support the family. His wife cared for their kids, including the youngest who isn’t in school yet. He said the school aged kids were learning English, getting good grades, and playing sports.

Going back to Venezuela meant giving up on all of that, and starting again with almost nothing.

“The truth is we really love this country,” Marin said. “We still love the country. But if it is God's will for us to return in order for all of us to be together, then that's what we'll do.”

They decided that they would all give up their claims for asylum and return to Venezuela so they could be together. In April, Garcia accepted “voluntary departure” from the U.S.

Over the next month, Plonksy helped Marin figure out how he and the children could reunite with Garcia in Venezuela.

But getting there wasn’t as simple as getting on a plane.

Since two of Marin and Garcia’s children were born in Colombia, they needed emergency travel paperwork – “salvoconductos” – to travel with their family. Garcia had to sign legal paperwork to allow the children to travel with their father.

Plonsky helped them with all of that. She even got them luggage when she saw that most of their stuff was in black trash bags. To buy the family’s plane tickets, she used funds raised by community organizations and teachers at the kids’ schools. Plonksy helped Marin bump their travel date back three times because it took so long to get everything else sorted.

The Trump administration has been urging people without legal status to leave the country, offering a $2,600 stipend and free flight for those who do. Marin submitted the documents required for the CBP Home program, but only received the payment for one of his children until Michigan Public reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to ask why the other stipends hadn’t been issued.

The family has been without internet access since two massive earthquakes struck the northern part of Venezuela on Wednesday, where they now live, but Michigan Public was able to confirm notice that the stipends had been issued to Marin and the six children who hadn't yet received the payment.

Without that cash, the family has had a hard time getting settled in Venezuela, a country where the economy is in such shambles that three months' minimum wage amounts to less than $1.

Marin plans to raise chickens and pigs on a bit of land his family owns in the country. For now, they’re just just trying to survive. Marin shared a video of the half-built house where they’re fending off mosquitos and taking turns sleeping on a single mattress.

They’re grateful to be together again, but if things had been different, they would all still be in Detroit.