A Venezuelan mother and her young daughter survived a deadly shipwreck off Nicaragua, spending hours stranded at sea before they were rescued. Less than two years later, they were separated after immigration agents detained the mother in Texas. Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas, 34, and her daughter, Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez, were among the survivors of a December 23, 2023 shipwreck near Corn Islands, Nicaragua.
The vessel was traveling from San Andrés, Colombia, toward Corn Island when it sank about five nautical miles southeast of the island, according to a Nicaraguan Army press release. "They believed they could die and experienced a tragedy in which other passengers lost their lives," Kissy Suarez, Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas' sister, told Newsweek in an exclusive statement. The Nicaraguan Army said its Naval Force launched a search-and-rescue operation after receiving reports of the shipwreck.
Local fishing boats helped rescue 10 survivors. The authorities recovered the bodies of two Venezuelan passengers who had drowned, including a 4-year-old girl, Nicaraguan authorities said. The family said Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas and Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez, who was 7 at the time, spent approximately 10 to 11 hours stranded in the water before being rescued.
The family said the pair were trying to reach the United States when the boat sank off the coast of Nicaragua. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek that the mother "illegally entered the country with her daughter in May 2024 near El Paso, Texas, whereupon she admitted to officers of illegal drug use." The pair later came to the United States and settled in Dallas, where Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas worked and Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez attended school. The family said they presented themselves to immigration authorities at the southern border, were processed and subsequently released while their immigration proceedings continued.
On September 8, 2025, Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas went to what her family described as a routine immigration check-in and was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She has remained in immigration detention for more than a year. President Donald Trump’s sweeping mass-deportation campaign has fueled a new wave of family separations, with parents detained or deported while their children remain in the United States.
A May 2026 analysis by the Brookings Institution estimated that approximately 205,000 children had "likely experienced" the detention of a parent since Trump returned to the White House. DHS said Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez was placed with a relative "as per ICE policy" and that Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas would remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. "ICE does not separate families," a DHS spokesperson said.
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