Yale Magna Cum Laude Graduate Accompanies Previously Deported Father Back to Honduras After ICE Raid on His Workers

Samantha Suazo, 23, stood to be recognized for magna cum laude honors at Yale University on May 18, 2026. A. in sociology from Yale’s Ethnicity, Race, Migration program and became the first member of her family to graduate from college.

Samantha left Honduras at age 11 with her parents seeking asylum. The family settled in Big Sky, Montana. She was naturalized as an American citizen in 2025. Her father, Marvin Suazo, established a construction company in the United States in 2014.

Her mother, Maribel Vasquez, cleaned homes for local residents in Montana. S. asylum process. Marvin was ineligible for asylum due to a previous deportation and remained undocumented.

In early 2026, ICE agents deported six of Marvin’s construction employees following a raid. The family decided Marvin would self-deport to Honduras after Samantha’s graduation while the rest of the family remained in the United States. The family traveled together down the East Coast before separating.

They visited the Washington Monument on May 18 and May 20, 2026. National Guard soldiers looked on as Maribel and Marvin walked past the monument. Marvin and his daughter Zhoe, 11, held hands near the White House.

The family looked through fencing at ongoing construction at the White House. On May 21, 2026, the family visited Universal Volcano Bay water park in Orlando, Florida. On May 24, they enjoyed a round of drinks in Miami one day before Marvin’s departure.

On May 25, 2026, Marvin cradled Zhoe at the Miami airport before his flight. He passed through a TSA checkpoint and boarded an American Airlines flight to Comayagua, Honduras. Samantha accompanied him on the flight.

The same day, Marvin and Samantha visited extended family in the village of Lagunas near Comayagua. On May 26, Samantha spoke to a class at the school she had attended as a child. On May 27, they saw a Catholic church in Lagunas that had been refurbished with remittance money from Honduran expats.

Marvin will rejoin his extended family, who are coffee farmers in a mountainous region of central Honduras. With savings from his work in the United States, he purchased a new home and fields to seed with coffee. He left the region with his family a dozen years before May 2026.

Samantha will return to New Haven, Connecticut, to work at an immigrant-advocacy nonprofit. She will apply to law school for the 2027 academic year. Esteban Suazo, 100, received a visit from his family during the trip.