Two days before the first day of school, immigration officers arrested 17-year-old Sebastian Jimenez Peroza — a student athlete at Gainesville High School — and the rest of his family.
Within a week, the family of four was separated among three different detention facilities in two states.
According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement online detainee locator system, Jimenez Peroza is being held in Texas with his mother, Antmary Peroza Barrios, 48. His stepfather is located at the Baker Correctional Institution, and his 28-year-old sister, Fabiana Morillo Peroza, is in Flagler County Jail.
The family’s arrests came within days of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reporting new figures
which showed they arrested nearly 50,000 people in July, according to data provided to the Deportation Data Project based at University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
A person familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to their own pending immigration status said the family has been in the process of seeking political asylum because of the mother’s social activism in Venezuela. Peroza Barrios came to the United States nearly 10 years ago, and Jimenez Peroza has been in the country since he was 7 years old.
The family was detained the same day, but separately, the source said. First, Peroza Barrios was on her way to work at the Drury Hotel when she was detained by immigration officers. Then, her daughter and husband were detained while looking for the mother after she shared her live location.
Jimenez Peroza was detained at home alone, at an apartment complex called the Reserve at Kanapaha.
It is not clear why immigration officers detained the family. Gainesville court records show minor traffic infractions in recent years, including Peroza Barrios having a ticket in 2020 for not having proof of car insurance during a traffic stop. An ICE spokesperson did not return a request for comment on why the family was arrested, despite these minor traffic tickets.
But the detention of Jimenez Peroza, days before he was supposed to start school Aug. 24, has brought an overwhelming outcry in the athletic and educational community at the school. A family friend hosted a GoFundMe soon after the arrests, and it has raised more than $13,000 as of Monday.
The teenager’s arrest also prompted the new Gainesville High School football coach, Ashour Peera, to speak out. He said the team misses Jimenez Peroza, and he described the 17-year-old as a student who would often check in on teammates and was “a joy to have around.”
“This is an entire family whose lives have just been changed,” Peera said. “They've been law-abiding citizens in the community, you know, good students for the for the kids while they were in school."
Since the start of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, these arrests have been more rampant, said Ethan Maia de Needell, a member of the leadership committee of the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative. Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show that as of July 1, 2025, 13.6% of Gainesville’s population identified as Hispanic or Latino, however this issue affects other immigrant communities in the area.
Maia de Needell said the vast majority of arrests haven’t directly come from federal immigration officers, but from Florida Highway Patrol, which began working with ICE agents soon after the Florida Legislature passed sweeping immigration laws during a special session last year.
Many of these arrests have come from traffic stops, like failing to turn with a signal, Maia de Needell said. But not only residents in Gainesville have been impacted by the detentions, other individuals with authorized permission to work in the country have been affected too.
Maia de Nedell mentioned that in past months, the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative presented a situation to the city commission involving a van carrying workers with H-2A visas. He expressed these individuals came from Mexico to supply needed labor for the local watermelon harvest.
“This work crew was pulled over, and two of the men were arrested and deported, even though they were completely legal to work here and were providing something very beneficial for our community,” said Maia de Nedell.
According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, an H2 A visa allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States for temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs, with employers, sponsorships and legal protections.
“We as a community have to stick together and help support each other in these times of crisis,” Maia de Needell said.
In Alachua County from September 2025 to March 2026, officers amongst various agencies conducted 150 immigration arrests, according to county records; 96 were made by the Florida Highway Patrol, 38 by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, 10 by the Gainesville Police Department, 2 by the Alachua Police Department, 2 others by High Springs Police Department and 2 others by federal agencies. A majority were correlated with traffic stops.
“Nearly a million immigrants came into this country under temporary protected status and under this administration, that status has been stripped from them through no fault of their own,” Maia de Needell said.
Gainesville Police Department issued a new order Aug. 27, establishing that officers must complete and submit a FDLE form (Suspected Unauthorized Alien Contact Form) if an officer suspects contact with an unauthorized noncitizen. The form requires uploading a photo of the individual and submitting the paperwork to a GPD address by the end of the shift.
The order says the authorities may suspect an individual could be an unauthorized noncitizen based on characteristics including limited English Proficiency.
Peera told WUFT News Sebastian and his mother are set to have a bond hearing Sept. 8 in Texas. That will determine whether they can be released while their immigration cases continue.