He helped police after his 20-year-old daughter was shot to death. Then ICE arrived at his door.

In October 2025, Erasmo Zavala Almanza traversed the streets of Reading during a silent march for victims of domestic violence, court records say, walking to represent his 20-year-old daughter, Selena.

Eight months earlier she had been shot to death by the father of her newborn girl. The father also shot the baby, then turned the gun on himself.

The 2-month-old child, critically wounded, survived through the fast action of police officers at the scene, the expertise of surgeons and nurses during months of hospitalizations, and the love of Zavala Almanza and his wife, who became full-time caregivers and court-appointed guardians to their orphaned granddaughter.

The Berks County district attorney recognized Zavala Almanza’s assistance in the homicide investigation by providing certification for him to seek what’s called a U visa. That visa offers a path to live permanently in the United States for undocumented victims and witnesses who help the police solve serious crimes.

But now Zavala Almanza, a Mexican citizen, can no longer financially provide for his granddaughter, Selene, nor assist in her recovery. He’s being held in immigration detention at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, Pa., facing deportation to Mexico.

On April 15, three months after the federal government received Zavala Almanza’s application for a U visa, ICE agents appeared at his home in Temple, Berks County, and arrested him for immigration violations.

His detention marks part of a dramatic change in what was longstanding ICE policy, which acknowledged that all U visa applicants have immigration violations, that they must disclose those violations ― and that those transgressions would be forgiven through the award of a U visa.

It also departs from what Congress intended when it created the U visa in 2000, by passing the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and the Battered Immigrant Women’s Protection Act. Congress created T visas at the same time to fight trafficking.

The goal was to strengthen the ability of law-enforcement agencies to investigate crimes like the one that took the life of Zavala Almanza’s daughter. The visas help police to solve crimes and increase public safety by gaining the cooperation of undocumented residents who might otherwise fear to come forward.

After taking office in 2025, President Donald Trump weakened the shield that U visas provide from immigration enforcement.

ICE agents previously were directed to take “a victim-centered approach,” dissuaded from acting against people known to be victims or witnesses, particularly in cases involving domestic violence, trafficking, and sexual assault. The new guidelines rescinded policies that had discouraged detention and deportation.

“It’s absolutely atrocious,” said Bridget Cambria, who represents Zavala Almanza and is executive director of Aldea — the People’s Justice Center in Reading. “An immigrant has no incentive to cooperate if they’re going to go to your house after you file [for a visa] and pick you up.”

Efforts to reach officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security for comment were unsuccessful, as were requests for comment from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes U visas.

The federal government says in court filings that Zavala Almanza has a final order of removal. His attorneys say that’s not true — and even if so, that order would be wiped away by the U visa.

A federal judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania has issued a temporary restraining order that bars ICE from deporting Zavala Almanza before his case can be heard at a hearing on Wednesday.

Zavala Almanza, 50, has no criminal record, according to Homeland Security.

In court papers, he said he and his wife entered the United States without permission in March 2004, crossing the border near Sonora, Ariz., and settling in Pennsylvania.

Zavala Almanza worked at jobs including pizza-making, roofing, and landscaping, and the couple welcomed two daughters, Stephanie and Selena, who became U.S. citizens at birth.

In September 2009, the couple was stopped by Wilkes-Barre police for a traffic violation. Neither had valid identification, and the officer contacted ICE.

Eleven months later, an immigration judge in Philadelphia granted voluntary departure, which meant they would be allowed to leave the country on their own, without accruing the penalties that accompany deportation.

Zavala Almanza acknowledged in court documents that while his wife departed on time, he overstayed the December 2010 deadline by at least a year before returning to Mexico.

He remained there for a year or two, then recrossed into the United States in late 2015 or early 2016, followed by his wife.

The family’s lives changed on the afternoon of Feb. 17, 2025, when Reading police responded to reports of gunfire at a home in the 1200 block of Locust Street.

Inside, officers found Selena Zavala Hernandez dead, and her baby, Selene Zavala Hernandez, shot in the stomach. Police said both had been attacked by 31-year-old Jesus Peñaloza Cruz, who then killed himself.

“Law enforcement went to extraordinary efforts to save the life of [the] baby,” court documents say, “including Reading police running the child from the crime scene for life-saving surgery.”

Doctors at the Reading Hospital trauma center provided emergency care, the child then airlifted to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. She remained in critical care for more than a month.

The girl was eventually transferred to Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital in Allentown, where she spent months more in inpatient care.

Every day, the family said in legal filings, Zavala Almanza commuted from work to the hospital bed of his granddaughter, an American citizen. He slept beside her in the hospital, learned how to flush her feeding tube, to change her colostomy bag, and to clean and dress her wounds.

The baby underwent multiple surgeries. Three times since the shooting the child has been hospitalized for infections.

Her continued recovery depends “on the consistent presence of the only two caregivers she has ever known,” court papers say. “She cannot be cared for by anyone other than Mr. Zavala Almanza and his wife, and she certainly cannot be taken to Mexico.”

Part of the reason for seeking the U visa, Zavala Almanza said in court documents, was to be sure he would be able to provide continued care and financial support for his granddaughter.

His wife cannot leave home to work because she tends full time to Selene.

He had gotten into his car to drive to work on April 15, he said in legal filings, when two unmarked ICE vehicles suddenly blocked his route. Four officers handcuffed him and took him to the ICE office in York.

Zavala Almanza said in court papers that he told the officers he was cooperating with the Berks County District Attorney’s Office, that his daughter had been killed and his granddaughter barely survived.

The officers, the documents say, told him there was nothing they could do.