From the small living room, in a house tucked away in a tiny and remote Honduran village, Wualner Sauceda recalled what it was like to be deported from the United States.
Sauceda, 24, was a rookie science teacher at Palms Spring Middle School in Hialeah, a city in South Florida, when he was detained in early January and deported a month later.
“I applied for asylum and that application process took several years,” Sauceda said.
His asylum application was eventually denied, and his appeal didn’t go anywhere, he told NBC6 in Miami during an exclusive two-part interview.
So he was looking for other legal pathways to remain in the country.
Given his unresolved immigration status, Sauceda had to check in with immigration officials.
Previous appointments were uneventful, and officials would typically issue a follow-up appointment.
On Jan. 7, he missed school to go to his appointment at the Miramar immigration office in South Florida. This time, he said, something felt different.
“I got there at 8 a.m., and I noticed it was 1 p.m. and then 2 p.m. and then 3 p.m.,” Sauceda said.
He was then told to park his car inside the lot. And once inside the government building, he asked officers what was going on.
“They told me, ‘you’re detained’,” said Sauceda, who added it was such a shocking blow that he couldn’t tell his parents. Instead, he called an uncle so he could break the news to the rest of the family.
“Emotionally, it was hard for me,” he said.
Sauceda now lives with his uncle and maternal grandparents in a rural area three hours northeast of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. Surrounded by dirt roads and mountainous terrain, the family relies partly on what they grow and farm animals they raise.
Unlike the United States, most if not all homes in that area, lack running water or air conditioning.
A nearby river is their source for water. They use it to bathe and wash. Their drinking water comes from a well.
Despite growing up in that setting until he was 13, Sauceda had become used to the comforts of South Florida.
“I was born here,”in Honduras, said Sauceda, who added that he and his cousin fled their native country after a close relative had been killed. Migrating to the U.S as a teen remains a vivid memory.
“I remember crossing…the river,” he recalled, and he eventually reunited with his parents, who were already in South Florida.
He enrolled at Henry H. Filer Middle School in Hialeah for 8th grade, then attended Westland Hialeah Senior High School.
Of his early school days, Sauceda said, “I felt that I can do things that I never thought I could do.” He quickly learned English, and by senior year, he was taking advanced courses.
“I remember taking honors English for seniors, honors pre-calculus and honors history, and that was something that I really liked because I went from ESOL level 1 to ESOL level 4,” he proudly remembered.
Despite his pending immigration case, he had aspirations for more.
“I knew that I wanted to be a teacher since I was a kid,” Sauceda remembered fondly.
At first, he thought he could be a math teacher, but eventually settled on science and started his college career at Miami-Dade College.
Financially though, college was draining because without a work permit, he couldn’t work, and finding scholarship money for undocumented students was tough.
But he found TheDream.us — an organization that claims to have provided more than 10,000 scholarships to undocumented students.
Sauceda applied to Florida International University and the University of Central Florida, and got accepted to both, but chose to go to FIU to be closer to his family.
In December 2023, Sauceda graduated with a 3.4 grade point average and a bachelor’s in chemistry with a track in education.
“This is my diploma from FIU,” he showed with excitement and pride. “I got even happier when I received my teaching certificate.”
A month after graduation, he was able to secure a job as a teacher at Miami-Dade Public Schools.
“I was a little bit scared because I was not a U.S. citizen and not a permanent resident, but I did have a social security, so that’s how I applied for teacher’s certificate,” he told NBC6.
It was a constant fear not just with work, but with life in general and perhaps foreshadowing what was to come.
After being detained, he was then transferred to the Broward Transitional Center, a Pompano Beach facility where migrants are held. Sauceda estimates he was at the facility for more than 20 days.
His attorney, Ivan Torres Hidalgo Gato, filed for deferred action, but Sauceda said nothing worked.
NBC6 contacted Hidalgo Gato with the intention of learning the details of Sauceda’s case, but he told us he was not interested in providing any insight into the Sauceda case.
Sauceda said he’ll never forget what an immigration officer told him while he was detained.
“He literally said that he was told to start putting people on that plane,” said Sauceda.
He was initially detained during the administration of President Joe Biden, but deported on Feb. 6, shortly after President Donald Trump took office.
Sauceda recalled being transported to a facility in Louisiana, which he described as a horrible experience. He said the rooms were over capacity, with 60 people in a room made for 24 detainees.
“I remember people moving the mattresses to the floor, and I was sleeping on the pure metal of the bed,” Sauceda added. “But during the day, the room would be really, really hot, and then during the night, it would be really, really cold, and I don’t know if they did that on purpose, but it was really bad.”
Sauceda recalled he was shackled by his hands, waist and feet before being placed in a deportation flight to Honduras.
“It was shocking to me because I have never experienced anything like that,” he said. “Sometimes I think about it and it saddens my heart,” Sauceda said, stoic but certainly with emotion.
NBC6 in Miami will air two additional interviews next week as part of their four-part series reporting on Sauceda’s case.
A version of this story was first published on NBCMiami.com.
