The sisters’ experience puts a human face on the practical choices U.S. citizen children can face when a parent is detained and deported. It also spotlights a dispute over whether ICE is doing enough to help families make care plans before removal.
Two U.S. citizen teenagers in Fort Worth were left behind after ICE deported their parents, according to reporting by NBC 5 Investigates. In August 2025, the teenagers’ parents were arrested and later deported by ICE, leaving 19-year-old Dulce Zepeda to care for her 13-year-old sister, Maria, for nearly a year.
Their story is not only about one family’s separation. It illustrates the difficult decisions facing U.S. citizen children when a parent is detained: stay in the country where they were born, find a guardian and financial support, or try to reunite with family in a parent’s country of origin. Maria has now gone to Honduras to be with her parents, while Dulce remains in Fort Worth.
A sudden change in Fort Worth
According to NBC 5 Investigates, the family had been back-to-school shopping at a Walmart in Burleson when the sisters’ mother, Daysi Munoz, was arrested by Burleson police on suspicion of shoplifting.
ICE told the outlet that the arrest led to the parents entering immigration custody. Burleson police released only part of the incident report because the case remained under investigation. The report listed suspected unpaid items including a mop, toilet paper and crab meat.
Munoz told NBC 5 that the family had forgotten items at the bottom of the cart and tried to pay for them. That account has not been independently resolved in the reporting, and the underlying shoplifting case was still under investigation.
The sisters said they said goodbye to their parents in the store parking lot. About 40 days later, Dulce said, both parents had been deported to Honduras.
One sister became the caregiver
Dulce, then 19, took on responsibilities that would normally fall to a parent. NBC 5 reported that she cooked, drove Maria to middle school, worked at a local McDonald’s and sold some of her mother’s jewelry to help cover bills.
Both sisters are U.S. citizens and had the legal right to remain in the United States. Citizenship, however, did not answer the immediate questions of who would provide day-to-day care, how the household would pay expenses or whether the children could travel to see their parents.
For Maria, the separation meant growing up without either parent present. For Dulce, it meant balancing work and caregiving while trying to establish her own adult life.
These cases can be especially complicated when no formal guardian has been arranged before a parent’s removal. Immigration advocates told NBC 5 that delays in sorting out guardianship, travel documents and money can extend the period children are separated from their families.
ICE and advocates describe the issue differently
The Women’s Refugee Commission, an immigration-focused nonprofit, said the sisters’ situation reflects a wider risk for U.S. citizen children whose parents are detained. Zain Lakhani, the organization’s director of migrant rights and justice, argued that faster deportations can leave less time for families to make plans.
The organization pointed to language in an ICE directive concerning detained parents. Lakhani told NBC 5 that an earlier version required assistance with family planning before deportation, while newer language says ICE will facilitate those steps when “operationally feasible.”
Advocates say that distinction matters because a parent may be removed before a child has a confirmed guardian, a valid passport or visa, or a workable plan to travel abroad. They characterize the resulting separations as a family-separation problem.
ICE rejects the framing that it separates families. In a statement to NBC 5, an agency spokesperson said: “ICE does not separate families. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”
The question of leaving together
Munoz told NBC 5 she repeatedly asked to take her daughters to Honduras. She said ICE told her that doing so would require spending another four or five months in detention while the process was arranged.
Munoz, who said she has high blood pressure, told the outlet she worried that extended detention would worsen her health. ICE did not answer NBC 5’s specific questions about her account or about efforts to reunite the family.
That unresolved point is central to the debate. ICE says parents are given options involving their children, while advocates argue that the practical barriers of detention, documentation and a fast removal timetable can make those options hard to use.
There is also no simple answer for a U.S. citizen child. Remaining in the United States may preserve school, friendships and a familiar home. Leaving may mean rejoining a parent but moving to a country the child may barely know.
Data suggests a broader impact
NBC 5 analyzed government records obtained by the University of Washington through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The data showed that at least 8,889 parents with U.S. citizen children were detained by ICE during the first seven months of the new Trump administration.
The records did not show exactly how many children those parents had. Still, the analysis suggested that roughly 12,000 to 15,000 U.S. citizen children may have been affected during that seven-month period.
Lakhani described that as the equivalent of about 50 U.S. citizen children each day experiencing the arrest, detention or possible deportation of a parent. That estimate should be read as an indicator of potential family impact, not a count of children whose parents were ultimately deported.
The Deportation Data Project, a nonprofit research group cited by NBC 5, found that immigrants are now more likely to be deported in under 60 days than during the prior administration. A faster process can reduce the window families have to make legal, financial and caregiving arrangements.
Maria reunites while Dulce stays
Nearly a year after her parents were detained, Maria was able to obtain a Honduran visa and a plane ticket to join them. It was her first trip to Honduras, the country where her parents had been deported.
Dulce said Maria needed their mother after spending about a year in her care. The reunion ended one part of the family’s separation, but it did not restore the household the sisters had before the arrest.
Dulce plans to remain in Fort Worth, where she was born and raised, and build a future on her own. Her decision underscores the lasting split that can follow a parent’s deportation: even when a child can reunite with a parent, siblings may not make the same choice.
The case leaves broader questions about planning and accountability. ICE maintains it offers parents pathways to keep children with them or place them safely. Advocates say those pathways need to work quickly enough, and clearly enough, to prevent U.S. citizen children from being left to navigate a parent’s deportation alone.
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