MAPLEWOOD, Mo. – Two employees for the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District were detained by ICE at a recent immigration appointment.For 10 days, Alba Matamoro-Hernandez has been separated from her husband after she says immigration officials detained him during a check-in appointment."It's been particularly hard to explain to our daughter what's happening with dad, to get her to understand," Matamoro-Hernandez said through an interpreter.Matamoro-Hernandez and her husband, Boanerges Flores-Bravo, came to the United States from Nicaragua three years ago and surrendered themselves at the border, she said. The couple says it applied for asylum and received work permits while waiting for their immigration case to move through the court system.The Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District said Flores-Bravo met all employment eligibility requirements. The couple worked on the custodial staff; positions that are often difficult to fill.CloseThanks for signing up!Watch for us in your inbox.Subscribe Now Daily News SIGN UP NOW"We follow all eligible hiring practices, both federal and state legislations, so we only hire people who are eligible to work and maintain work," Vince Estrada, the district's director of student services, said.Estrada said the district has been helping the couple find resources as they now navigate the possibility of deportation.Matamoro-Hernandez said the family's situation changed May 18 during an immigration check-in."They told me that they were detaining my husband, but they were going to allow me to be released with the ankle monitor," she said.Now wearing that monitor, Matamoro-Hernandez said she is confined to the St. Louis area as her 8-year-old child finishes school and the family can prepare to self-deport. She says the asylum case is still not scheduled.Immigration attorney David Cox said situations like this are becoming more common. He said, under prior administrations, including President Donald Trump's first administration, many immigrants would surrender at the border and follow the same process that Matamoro has. This St. Louis suburb ranks among America's 'safest midsize cities,' study says "The administration has basically said, we have the right to take away the benefits we gave you to let you do that check-in regularly and stay here and wait for, for example, an asylum claim to be decided, which can take many years," Cox said.When democratic lawmakers toured the St. Genevieve County Detention Center earlier this week, they said they heard from ICE detainees inside who shared the same experience. FOX 2 covered another similar detention of a University City High School student earlier this month.Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, addressed the issue while speaking about that University City case."If you're here illegally, but not violent, I have to remind you, you don't have a right to be here," Hawley said. "People who have waited in line for years, we have so many of them in Missouri."Matamoro-Hernandez said she wants the public to understand her family's situation."We're not all criminals," she said. "We've paid our taxes. We worked here. We love this community."Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2.