Concern that her husband could face deportation has weighed on Sarah Galvan since the couple married in 2017.
This week, those fears were realized.
Federal agents’ well-publicized detention of her family, also including two stepsons, has sparked controversy around the involvement of Rochester police, and drawn national attention. But for Galvan, it has left a void, and an uncertain future. What little family she has also been taken. And her husband was the breadwinner.
“We was always together,” Galvan said through tears during an interview Friday. “I don't have nobody. I only had him, and he had me. He would always tell me, we have each other, because we don't even have family.”
Her husband is a native of Guatemala, and undocumented. While he had made some efforts to gain citizenship, it never materialized. In the years that followed, two of his sons, now 20 and 25, relocated to stay with him. The younger came when he was 15 as danger in the country became untenable. The second came a few years later after their eldest brother was killed while working a security job.
I stand with the officers of the Rochester, New York Police Department that answered the emergency assistance call from the U.S Border Patrol. The men and women of the Border Patrol have never refused the request for assistance from any law enforcement agency when they are…
— Thomas D. Homan (@RealTomHoman) March 28, 2025
WXXI News is withholding the names of the three men in response to safety concerns raised by an immigration advocacy group working with the family.
A search of local, state, and federal records found no criminal cases connected to any of the men in New York. A search of records in New Jersey, where Galvan’s husband had originally relocated to in 2013, also showed no criminal history.
“Innocent people that's trying to be here to work and have a better future,” she said of her family. "They don't do nothing, nothing criminal, nothing bad.”
The family moved from New Jersey to Rochester in 2019, seeking a lower cost of living. They stayed for a time at a family shelter while looking for more permanent housing.
“They used to save him dinner because they knew he went to work and he would come,” Galvan said. “He was the only man working in the shelter.”
For the past few years, the trio have worked as roofers in the Rochester area, traveling in a weathered rust-red work van, a Spanish-language bible resting prominently on its dashboard. On Monday, the three were heading home from a roofing job when Galvan’s husband called her, saying they’d been stopped by federal officers.
When she arrived, his van was blocked on both ends by unmarked vehicles from Homeland Security Investigations.
“They were in the vehicle, and I told the officers, they're not going to talk,” Galvan said. “They have their rights. And they were like, ‘No.''"
The federal agents had pulled over the van on Whitney Street near Lyell Avenue and were trying the door handle, and allegedly banging on the rear doors, attempting to remove the men from the vehicle. In a passerby's video of the encounter, Galvan is seen yelling at the officers and pleading with them to leave her husband and stepsons alone. The federal agents called 911 and requested emergency assistance from the Rochester Police Department, officials said.
Rochester is a sanctuary city, meaning that its police department is forbidden by policy from aiding and assisting in federal immigration action. However, officers do respond to secure scenes and ensure public safety.
Ten officers arrived to assist the HSI agents, shoving Galvan away from the van, then helping to get the men out of the vehicle, and handcuffing at least one of the sons. Galvan confirmed all three are currently being held in an immigration detention facility in Batavia.
On Wednesday, Mayor Malik Evans and Chief David Smith held a news conference calling out the actions of the officers in assisting the agents with taking the men into custody as an apparent violation of city policy. An internal investigation is said to be ongoing, and 10 officers were reportedly pulled from the street to receive further training.
The Rochester Police Locust Club and others have voiced support for the officers.
In a statement, the union said the response was "a complete overreaction," as the officers "did absolutely nothing wrong, other than to answer a call for help from another agency."
But the issue, as emphasized by Smith and Evans, was never that officers responded to the call. It was, rather, their actions in assisting the federal officers in an immigration action. Smith also said it should have been clear to the officers that there was no emergency that required their assistance.
On Friday, the union posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that several of its top officers had met with Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s border czar, and that Homan would be coming to Rochester.
Homan takes a hardline stance toward undocumented immigrants and has vowed the strongest immigration enforcement against sanctuary cities.
“I stand with the officers of the Rochester, New York Police Department that answered the emergency assistance call from the U.S Border Patrol," Homan wrote. “The men and women of the Border Patrol have never refused the request for assistance from any law enforcement agency when they are available. That is the way it should be. Law enforcement officers should not be abandoned in the time of need because of politics. Sanctuary policies endanger our police and the public. President Trump and (Attorney General) Pam Bondi are committed to taking them on and so am I. Help is coming!”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not responded to questions about the reasons for the traffic stop or call for an emergency response by RPD. But issued a statement last week announcing that the agency had begun conducting “enhanced, targeted operations in parts of New York.” That allegedly also has included the detention of at least three legally resettled Bhutanese refugees, according to Bijaya Khadka, who leads the city’s New Americans Advisory Council. All were men, and two had some sort of criminal histories, he said, one having recently completed probation and the other with DUI convictions.
In a news conference outside the White House earlier this week, Homan commented on recent ICE action taken in Massachusetts. A total of 370 undocumented immigrants were arrested in those actions, according to a statement from ICE. A total of 205 had previous criminal convictions.
Homan described the 165 without any criminal record as “collaterals.”
"How come the collaterals? I've said this a thousand times, Sanctuary Cities are going to get exactly what they don't want, more agents in the community — and more collateral arrests,” Homan said.
Galvan thinks her family was collateral. She is currently seeking legal assistance in getting her husband and stepsons released. The legal avenues to do so, however, seem slim.
Galvan has spoken to her husband at the detention center several times since his arrest to offer him support. Among his needs were his glasses and medication to treat his diabetes.
One other piece was missing.
“He said, ‘There’s no Bible in here,” Galvan said.
