Beloved Miami-Dade teacher shares what life is like after deportation

Wualner Sauceda showed off the many letters he received from colleagues and students.

“Mr. Sauceda, you were my favorite teacher and still are,” he read out loud from his Honduran home located in a tiny town three hours northeast of the country’s capital Tegucigalpa.

Many of the students he left behind used the letters to express how much they miss him, and others expressed being worried about upcoming state testing and how they wish he was there to prepare them.

“It has affected me in different ways, especially my students, because my students were left without a teacher. This affects their academic life,” Sauceda said of his recent deportation.

NBC6 reached out to the Miami-Dade School District with hopes they could provide access to other teachers and the school’s principal who could talk about the impact Sauceda made in the classroom.

But district officials told NBC6 that no one volunteered to speak.

NBC6 later got a hold of an e-mail sent out by the school’s Assistant Principal Nidia Garcia, who reminded teachers, “We do not comment to the media concerning any issues.”

The notice was sent out on Feb. 7, the same day a news conference was held where the teacher’s union announced Sauceda had been deported. At that time, his name remained a mystery.

NBC6 also requested an interview with Miami-Dade Superintendent Jose Dotres regarding Sauceda, but the request was denied.

Dotres, who was born in Cuba, often touts his own immigrant story. Like Sauceda, Dotres also migrated to the U.S. in his youth.

It’s been weeks since Sauceda has been back in Honduras, where he was not able to take anything with him but the clothes he was wearing.

A couple of weekends ago, he got quite the surprise by way of a delivery from the Miami-Dade Teachers Union.

“His story just really touched me,” said United Teachers of Dade President Karla Hernandez-Mats, who traveled to Honduras carrying the special delivery.

Hernandez-Mats brought back two pieces of luggage packed with the clothing he wasn’t able to bring with him.

Then, there was the stuff that matters: the college degree, his teaching certificate and those special letters written by students and colleagues, which are all now back in his possession.

Hernandez-Mats said it was the least she and the rest of the union could do given the circumstances.

The union also raised money for Sauceda.

Sauceda’s case is a clear example the U.S. immigration system is broken, Hernandez-Mats said.

“I think everybody can agree on that as well. But we've got to fix it because these are good quality people that deserve a chance and that are making an impact on doing really good things in our community,” she added.

“I knew that I wanted to be a teacher since I was a kid,” he remembered fondly.

Sauceda applied to Florida International University and the University of Central Florida, 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.

“I believe they should have given more attention to my case,” Sauceda said of his immigration case.

He believes the American immigration system failed him. His asylum application was denied, and his appeals didn’t go anywhere.

Wualner’s case is not unusual, and migrants like him often wait a long time to get their status settled partly because of a backlog in immigration courts.

NBC6 recently got a hold of data that shows Florida has the largest number of immigration cases pending in courts.

In Sauceda’s case, he had a work permit and social security, which allowed him to get his teaching certificate, and never got in trouble with the law.

“I have a clean record. I never obtained not even a traffic ticket,” he told NBC6.

NBC6 contacted Ivan Torres Hidalgo Gato with the intention of learning the details of Sauceda’s case, but he told NBC6 he was not interested in providing any insight into the Sauceda case.

Sauceda will never forget Jan. 7, when he was detained at the immigration facility in Miramar.

It was such a shocking blow, he could not bear to tell his parents, instead, had an uncle break the news to them.

“Emotionally, it was hard for me,” Sauceda said.

Sauceda, 24, was a first-year teacher at Palm Springs Middle School in Hialeah.

But the Honduran native now found himself at the Broward Transitional Center, a Pompano Beach facility where migrants are held.

He estimates he was there for more than 20 days and remembers what one immigration officer told him.

“He literally said that he was told to start putting people on that plane,” Sauceda said.
Sauceda was initially detained in the last days of the Joe Biden administration, but he was officially deported once Donald Trump took office.

“The deportation process happened faster,” he recalled when describing the process to NBC6.

He remembers being transported to a facility in Louisiana, which he described as a horrible experience where rooms were packed with people.

“During the day, the room would be 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,” he said, recalling his experience.

He was then taken to a third and final facility before he was deported, almost exactly a month after he was detained.

Like criminals, Sauceda recalls being shackled by his hands, waist and feet.

“When I saw all of that, it was shocking to me because I have never experienced anything like that,” said Saucedo, who does not have a criminal record.

When he landed back in Honduras, passengers on the plane were told to close their windows so those outside could not see they were shackled.

“Sometimes I think about it and it saddens my heart,” he said of the whole experience. “The sad part is leaving my family behind.”

His faith, the lifelong Christian said, has helped him cope with a new reality.

“I ask God for peace and I know that God is providing. And if I’m here in this country is because he’s going to provide,” he said.

He was deported back to Honduras on Feb. 6.