Alex Sanchez-Ramos’ life looks a lot different than it did a week ago. That’s when a group of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed his family’s home in Soldotna, arrested his wife, Sonia Espinoza Arriaga, and two of her sons. Sanchez-Ramos, a lifelong Alaskan and U.S. citizen, described a chaotic scene as the agents gave Sonia’s oldest son orders.
“He was too busy freaking out, like he was, like, drawing a blank,” Sanchez-Ramos said. “He was like, white, crying. Matias was crying. He didn't know what was going on, but he’s seeing all these men with guns and tactical vests and masks and me in handcuffs, his brother in handcuffs – the boy was in shock, too.”
Sanchez-Ramos is speaking in the lobby of the Soldotna Safeway, close to midnight. He’s between shifts at his two jobs, still in his first work uniform as he explains what happened. Sonia is on the phone from Mexico. He puts her on speaker and translates.
“She said that it was very difficult to watch just sitting there in the car and she … she started getting a little bit of hope that was – it felt like it was just her going,” Sanchez-Ramos said. “Because why would they put a kid, children, in handcuffs and detain them like that?”
The middle son later joined them, and agents drove the group to Anchorage. Once there, 18-year-old Alexis, the oldest, was separated and taken to the Anchorage Correctional Complex. Espinoza Arriaga and the two younger boys were taken to ICE’s field office downtown. Faith leaders think the case marks the first instance of ICE detaining children in Alaska.
Sanchez-Ramos followed his family to Anchorage, arriving about an hour and a half later. Espinoza Arriaga said she was told she and the two youngest sons would be put up in a hotel for the night. The agents took the family’s phones, but she was able to call her husband on an officer’s phone. They made plans to meet the following day with their attorney.
But that in-person meeting didn’t happen. Later the same evening, Espinoza Arriaga and her two youngest sons were put on a plane and flown south. Less than 48 hours after ICE arrived on their doorstep, they were in Mexico.
“She got on the plane at like 11:30 in the evening, and that’s when she realized they were misled and Alexis was gone,” Sanchez-Ramos said. “And she didn’t understand where he was, or where they went, and they told her he’ll be here later on. Totally misleading the whole time.”
In the days since, community members, faith leaders and state lawmakers have all jumped into action to support the family amid their uncertain future.
As of Wednesday, Alexis remains detained in ICE’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, according to ICE’s detainee locator database. Espinoza Arriaga said she’s been able to talk to him, and that things have calmed down since he’s been able to use a phone. But she said he’s anxious to get out and they’re not sure when they’ll be reunited.
Sanchez-Ramos said it all started with an immigration hearing on Jan. 13 that his wife missed. It was shortly after one she attended remotely. He said they thought the second hearing might have been a follow-up, because it wasn’t clear what the purpose was. Two days later, a letter arrived with a deportation order and an explanation of how Espinoza Arriaga could stay in the country legally.
That’s when the couple contacted a lawyer to explore their options, and believed they’d squared everything away.
“We trusted the process, trusted the government, trusted the courts, because we filed the paperwork,” Sanchez-Ramos said. “And when your attorney says, ‘Don't worry, it's gonna be OK, because you filed the paperwork, this is what's gonna happen,’ that’s what happens in her case, you know, from her experience.”
Espinoza Arriaga and her three sons arrived in the United States in 2023, seeking asylum from cartel violence and domestic abuse. While their asylum case moved forward, she and her two oldest sons got work authorization cards.
Espinoza Arriaga and Sanchez-Ramos each worked two jobs. Alexis, and 16-year-old Cristofer who’s still in high school, also work. Neither Espinoza Arriaga nor any of her three sons have a criminal record, according to faith leaders who held a press conference to spread awareness about the family’s detention last week. The youngest, Matias, is 5 years old, in kindergarten.
Despite their schedules, Sanchez-Ramos says they try to always make time for family.
“We all, like, make sure that one of us is there for Matias all the time,” he said. “We – Sonia or I – cook every night, and we sit down at the table and have a tradition.”
The couple met while working at Don Jose’s in Soldotna. The business is owned by Sanchez-Ramos’ family, with a few locations around Southcentral. He gravitated toward her funny personality and “awesome laugh.” She points to his good looks and positive attitude at work. And she said it meant a lot that he got along with her kids.
It was Sanchez-Ramos who picked up 16-year-old Cristofer from school the morning the family was detained. An ICE spokesperson, Christine Cuttia, told KDLL via email that initially, ICE kept Espinoza Arriaga together with her kids at her request, until ICE handed the oldest son off to be processed as an adult in Anchorage.
“ICE does NOT separate families,” Cuttia said. “Parents are given a choice to either take their minor children with them or place them in the care of someone they designate. This is consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement.”
In a video posted on TikTok, Cristofer said he was in the middle of an English test when he was called to the office. Sanchez-Ramos tears up remembering the conversation they had in front of the school.
“He saw the look that I gave him, and he immediately was like, ‘What is it? What's going on, what's happening? Are you OK?’” Sanchez-Ramos said. “And I said, ‘No, I'm not OK. Things are messed up right now.’”
Sanchez-Ramos said he gave Cristofer a hug, then drove him to the Alaska State Troopers Soldotna Post.
Austin McDaniel is a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, which is the troopers’ parent agency. He said the department doesn’t have a contract with ICE or the authority to perform immigration enforcement, but that troopers try to be “good partners” with local and federal law enforcement.
“We did assist federal law enforcement as they were performing their lawful duties in the Kenai Peninsula area, which is not an abnormal thing to happen for federal law enforcement as they're operating in areas of the state where they don't have offices or full-time personnel,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel said that assistance included allowing ICE agents to use the trooper’s garage space to move the family between vehicles. McDaniel said he doesn’t know if ICE officers have brought other detainees to the troopers’ Soldotna office. McDaniel said it’s standard for other agencies to notify troopers about their activities, but didn’t say what happened in this case. He referred further questions to ICE.
Soldotna Police Chief Stace Escott says he learned about the family’s detention through an Anchorage Daily News article shared with him by KDLL. He said federal agencies operating in the city usually notify local law enforcement of their presence on a need-to-know basis, but that didn’t happen last week.
“To my knowledge, our department was not notified or did not need to be notified,” he said. “So we were not aware of that at all.”
That’s not something Escott said he’s concerned about. He said he trusts ICE, and, unlike what the troopers expect, said that it makes sense the agency wouldn’t want to tip anyone off to an upcoming operation.
“The tighter they can keep all that information, the better I would assume,” he said.
ICE has taken others in Alaska, including in Soldotna.
Last spring, ICE agents detained a Soldotna business owner at his home after a federal grand jury indicted him for falsely claiming citizenship and for illegally reentering the United States in the mid-1990s. He had previously been deported. He pleaded not guilty to both charges.
Prior to last year’s arrest, Francisco Rodriguez-Rincon had lived in Soldotna for decades and was the owner of Senor Panchos and Sol-Agave Mexico!, both restaurants in the Soldotna area.
The federal government ultimately deported Rodriguez-Rincon to Mexico again, then dropped the two criminal charges against him.
Soldotna and the Kenai Peninsula as a whole are reliably Republican. They went solidly for Donald Trump during the 2024 election. But a vocal contingent of area residents have doggedly spoken out against various federal actions during Trump’s second term.
Earlier this month, hundreds clustered on a busy Soldotna intersection to speak out against federal immigration operations. The demonstration came weeks after federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
And last Friday, more than 100 people gathered at Soldotna’s Christ Lutheran Church to brainstorm ways to help the family. By the end of the evening, the group had organized a candlelight vigil and collected more than $1,700 in cash, with half to be given to Sanchez-Ramos and the other half to be sent to Espinoza Arriaga in Mexico.
Two attendees are friends of the deported family members. They asked not to be identified for fear of workplace retaliation, but shared memories of watching scary movies with Alexis and listening to music (especially Natanael Cano) with Cristofer.
One friend said she immediately broke down after learning the family had been detained, saying she didn’t think something like that could happen in Soldotna.
“We'd all just like, spend time together, you know, go for car rides,” one friend said. “We went to Anchorage a few times to go shopping. They're all really nice people, like, we all enjoyed doing, just like, you know, teenager things that everybody does.”
Another said she was close with the family, especially Espinoza Arriaga, because they both speak in Spanish. She describes Espinoza Arriaga as hardworking and compassionate – an amazing cook who always gave good advice and came to the United States in pursuit of the American dream.
“Coming up here was going to make a big difference for her life and her child's life, and also, you know, she fell in love, she got married,” this friend said. “So I think coming up here has been really helpful for her, because she is becoming a really, a strong and happier woman than how she was before.”
Susan Nabholz is a former Kenai Peninsula Borough School District teacher, and said she used to have Cristofer as a student. She remembers him as a kid who was quick to smile and could write poetry in Spanish and English.
“We have a nation right now that is filled with people who are greedy and selfish and hateful,” she said. “We want to have people that are kind and compassionate and trying to do the right thing. And that's exactly what this family was doing, all of those things that were the right thing. It just makes me sick to think that all of a sudden, all of that was just pulled out from under them.”
Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Superintendent Clayton Holland struck a similar tone. He told KDLL last week that no ICE agents have come onto a school campus, and that the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, precludes school staff from giving out student information to non-family members.
“Any agreements we have, whether it's an online company, whatever it is, respect and honor FERPA,” said. “And FERPA also applies to law enforcement agencies with the exception of emergency situations where it's necessary to protect basically, the health and safety of a student or other individuals.”
The day after the family was detained, Holland sent out a mass email to administrators at the district’s 42 schools, reminding them of what to do if an ICE agent comes to their campus. A bulleted list directs staff to get the agent’s name and documentation supporting their request, contact the district’s Soldotna office immediately, and direct the officer to the school’s front office.
Holland said it’s important to remember that ICE’s targets are human beings.
“These kids are our kids and I think that’s forgotten at times,” he said. “Remember there’s humanity involved. These kids have friends. They have staff that care about them and there’s a right way to do things. This isn’t the right way to do it.”
State lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee met on Monday to review ICE’s detention of minors in Alaska. One immigration law expert told the lawmakers she was shocked at how quickly the family was deported.
“As I understand the facts, this family didn't have an opportunity to contest the removal order against at least one family member because they were so swiftly and abruptly deported from the United States,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.
She said the family should have been given the opportunity to challenge the federal deportation order. She said there are lawful reasons to miss an immigration hearing, like misdirected mail or a medical emergency.
“This is not what due process requires,” she said. “This is not what the Constitution allows. This family should have had an opportunity to be heard on whatever claim the U.S. government, the executive branch, is making against them.”
The couple is grateful for everyone’s support. As of Wednesday, a GoFundMe for the family had raised more than $15,000 for legal fees and to help Espinoza Arriaga and her kids start over in Mexico.
It’s unclear what awaits Alexis, the oldest son, at the detention center in Tacoma.
In Mexico, violence erupted over the weekend after the Mexican government killed the head of a powerful drug cartel. Many residents were ordered to stay at home.
In messages to KDLL sent via TikTok, Cristofer, the middle son, described seeing burning cars. He said he’s scared of the cartel violence and that he misses his girlfriend in Soldotna.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said in one TikTok video. “I just want to go back to my life.”
He thanks people who have reached out.
Espinoza Arriaga said they’re staying with her daughter, who lives close to a store that sells essentials. She’s trying to stay calm, but she and Cristofer said they’re scared, stressed and sad. She wants to get back to Soldotna, to hold her family together, in their home.
Sanchez-Ramos said the long-term goal is for the family to return to Alaska. He said their lawyer outlined a possible path. But nothing is guaranteed. Their attorney couldn’t be reached for comment, but is challenging the family’s detention in federal court.
For now, Sanchez-Ramos is trying to do what he can for Alexis in Tacoma, and to renew his passport to possibly visit his wife and the two kids in Mexico. He’s working two jobs and is on call for a third, and said it’s hard returning each day to a quiet house.
“Every time I go home, I'm seeing that, you know?” he said. “And feeling it. And it’s so empty without Sonia there and the children, and I miss them so much.”
In the front yard, a snowman he built with Matias is starting to cave in. He said they waited for the right texture of snow and built it mostly in the dark while his wife cooked dinner in the kitchen.
