Roosevelt superintendent travels to Guatemala to graduate Alvaro Castro Velasquez, student detained by ICE

Alvaro Castro Velasquez teared up as Roosevelt schools Superintendent Shawn Wightman pulled a blue cap and gown out of a manila envelope.

Wightman helped his former student put on the gown and got dressed in his own black graduation robe. Then the superintendent uttered the words he had traveled thousands of miles to say:

"By the authority vested in me as superintendent of the Roosevelt Union Free School District ... I do hereby officially certify, affirm and declare that you, Alvaro, are a graduate of the Roosevelt Union Free School District and a full member of its graduating class of 2025," he said.

Castro Velasquez — and Wightman — had waited nearly nine months for this moment, after the young man was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just weeks before his high school graduation last June.

In a private ceremony on a rainy evening last week, under the sterile light of a hotel restaurant in Guatemala, Castro Velasquez, now 20, finally received his diploma.

After Wightman declared Castro Velasquez a graduate, the superintendent said, “Now you may turn your tassel."

Castro Velasquez moved his tassel over to the left side of the cap. There was some scattered clapping from other patrons at the restaurant. His father and sister, who listened as Wightman’s driver translated, rose from their seats and hugged him, the superintendent recalled in an interview. Wightman also provided Newsday a copy of his speech. 

“Though it comes by a different road than the one originally planned, it arrives with no less dignity, no less truth and no less authority,” Wightman told the small group. “What he accomplished remains his.”

Voluntary departure

Castro Velasquez was the first known K-12 student on Long Island detained by ICE amid President Donald Trump's ongoing immigration crackdown.

A second Roosevelt student was detained last fall and remains in ICE custody, according to the agency’s tracker. Wightman said a third student, a senior, is too afraid to come to school after her father was detained weeks ago.

“And there will be more,” Wightman said.

Castro Velasquez, a Guatemalan native, illegally crossed the southern border at 16 and was granted a special status for unaccompanied minors, Newsday previously reported. The young man was detained by ICE last June and agreed to return to Guatemala in September after having spent months in a detention center in Texas.

Taking voluntary departure meant Castro Velasquez will not face the reentry penalty that typically comes with a deportation, said Pallvi Babbar, an immigration attorney who has represented him.

Babbar said her client had no criminal record and no removal order against him when the car he was riding in was pulled over at a random checkpoint.

The attorney said Castro Velasquez’s mother was dead and his father was not in his life. She said he had no living relatives in Guatemala.

But since returning to Guatemala, Castro Velasquez said he has lived with his father and worked for him to process coffee. He told Wightman he works 12 hours every day, earning about $12 a day, the superintendent said.

In a phone interview with Newsday, Castro Velasquez said he wants to come back to Roosevelt, where he had attended high school from 2022 until his detainment.

Castro Velasquez said he has kept up learning English, spending time every night after work to read and study. He said he looks up words online to learn how to pronounce them and to understand their meaning. He said he misses his family, friends and his neighborhood back on Long Island.

He misses the simple things that so many take for granted: to go shopping or eat something somewhere with friends.

“My dream is I work and study,” he said. “Then have a good job and a good life. And then one day, have a family and a house and enjoy your life.”

From Roosevelt to Guatemala

When Castro Velasquez was detained in Texas, Wightman traveled there in July hoping to “graduate” him. But Wightman said he was prohibited from bringing the diploma inside the facility and only spoke to him through a glass window.

Determined to give Castro Velasquez the ceremony he missed with his peers, Wightman said he used his vacation days and his own money to travel to Guatemala last week. After attending a school board meeting Tuesday night, Wightman flew out of Kennedy Airport around 2:20 a.m. Wednesday.

He said he took two flights, with a layover in Panama, followed by a six-hour car ride from the capital, Guatemala City, to the hotel where he was to meet his former student. He arrived in San Pedro Sacatepéquez, near where Castro Velasquez has been living, after 5 p.m. local time.

Wightman speaks limited Spanish but said the trip worked out when his Guatemala City hotel connected him with a driver who translated for him.

That arduous process gave Wightman insight into the difficult journey his former student had undertaken as a 16-year-old years ago.

“I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for individuals who come here looking for a better life, taking a risk to … live, let's say the American dream, to that extent and willing to risk everything for that,” he said.

After returning last Friday, Wightman said in an interview that he felt he had some sense of closure. The superintendent could have chosen to mail the diploma instead of hand-delivering it, but Wightman said he wanted to bring a version of the graduation to Castro Velasquez because he had earned his diploma and the ceremony that goes with it.

“If somebody doesn't get an opportunity to get something, I feel that it's only right to give them what it is that they were denied,” he said.

Wightman also wanted to ensure the diploma didn’t get lost in the mail, as it is something that his former student would need if he wants to attend college when he returns to the United States. Wightman believed it’s a matter of when — not if — the young man will find a way to come back.

For now, Castro Velasquez said he’s unsure of how to return to the United States but has kept his hopes up. After the ceremony last Wednesday, he said he was happy to see his superintendent and that his father almost didn’t believe him when he told him Wightman was coming just to see him.

“He [comes to] my country, and he [comes to] my neighborhood, and … just for me,” Castro Velasquez said. “That's really amazing.”

Castro Velasquez said he was sad to leave the United States but having the diploma in his hands has given him a token of comfort.

“This is not the end,” he said. “This is like ... a start.”