STLPR0%
Maplewood Richmond Heights school custodian to be deported. His wife and daughter will follow him 24%
By Hiba Ahmad0%
5/29/2026, 11:17:06 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Framing Effect, and Confirmation Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 15.4% saturation with 112 hits. Analysis detected 1,103 faulty-reasoning hits from 726 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36.5% and a BS Rank of 24% (12,929 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 76.90% of the article peer group.
A custodian in the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District is set to be deported in June after he was detained by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement on May 18.
Boanerges Flores-Bravo sought asylum at the U.S. southern border four years ago with his wife, Alba Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez, and daughter after fleeing political violence in Nicaragua.
They were granted work permits and authorized to stay in the U.S. while their case made its way through the immigration system.
The school district confirmed that both husband and wife are employees at the MRH Early Childhood Center.
Their daughter, who is a rising third grader, is a student in the district.
"The MRH School District follows all state, local and federal hiring guidelines.
This includes hiring persons who are legally eligible for employment, pass background checks, pay income taxes, and contribute to Social Security and Medicare,” Vince Estrada, MRH’s director of student services, said in a statement.
“This is counter to the narrative that is used to justify mass deportation: that we are deporting the worst of the worst, people who came here the wrong way, and people who drain resources from our community,” Estrada said.
Immigration arrests have nearly tripled in Missouri in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Since January 2025, more than 3,200 people have been arrested by ICE, according to the Deportation Data Project.
In an interview with STLPR, Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez said she knew something was wrong when her husband was held for an extended period during a regularly scheduled check-in with ICE.
Agents later informed her that her husband would be detained and moved to the Ste.
Genevieve County Jail.
As of Friday, he has been moved to a detention facility in Louisiana, and deportation proceedings have begun, according to Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez.
An ICE spokesperson said in a statement that Flores-Bravo was arrested for “being unlawfully present in the United States,” remains in custody of federal officials and will receive full due process of the law.
An ICE spokesperson said in a statement “being in detention is a choice” and encouraged immigrants without legal status to self-deport.
When asked why Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez was allowed to stay in the U.S. while her husband was quickly moved toward deportation, ICE said she was selected for the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program that allows immigrants to remain in their communities during immigration proceedings.
Missouri state Rep.
Ray Reed, a Democrat whose district includes Maplewood Richmond Heights in St.
Louis County, called for Flores-Bravo’s release in a statement.
“A husband has been separated from his family and a school community has been shaken apart because of an immigration enforcement system that increasingly punishes people attempting to comply with the law instead of focusing resources on genuine threats to public safety,” Reed said.
Speaking through an interpreter, Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez said the agents fitted her with an ankle monitor and told her she could not leave the St.
Louis area while her daughter finished up the school year.
ICE also advised her to self-deport with her daughter.
Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez said she has a check-in with immigration officials on June 1 where she will have to verify whether she will opt for the federal government’s self-deportation plan.
The ICE spokesperson said in a statement that the plan gives immigrants $2,600 and a free flight out of the country.
Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez said she and her daughter have opted to leave the U.S. this summer and return to Nicaragua.
They still have family in the country, but she is worried about how her daughter will adjust.
“[My daughter] is also very sad because she wanted to at least stay and study so she can finish third grade here,” she said.
When asked what she wants the community to understand about the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on illegal immigration in the U.S., Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez said her family’s experience doesn’t fit into the government’s narrative.
“The government is not deporting criminals the way [Trump] is saying they are.
The majority of us that are here are workers.
The only thing we want is to get our family ahead.
Others of us are here due to fear because we cannot go back to our countries.”
STLPR's Paola Rodriguez contributed to this report.
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