San Marcos police have sidelined one of their own after a March traffic stop ended with a San Antonio father in federal immigration custody and his teenage son briefly jailed. Officer Jaciel Cortina was placed on administrative leave effective April 10 while the department conducts an internal review, the city said. The early-morning stop grew out of a report that a 15-year-old girl might be trying to leave her mother’s house in a red pickup, but police later concluded the girl never left and that no crime occurred.
How the stop unfolded
According to a city statement, officers were sent out just before 4 a.m. on March 14 after a call about the possibly missing teen. They located a pickup that matched the description and initiated what the city called a high-risk traffic stop when the driver did not respond to loudspeaker commands. Officers approached the vehicle and tried to remove the driver, then arrested both the driver and an adult passenger after saying they had established probable cause, as outlined in a city release, according to KSAT.
Where it happened
City-council materials later listed the March 14 incident for executive-session legal discussion, identifying the traffic stop near Aquarena Springs Drive and Charles Austin Drive and noting that the initial call came from the 1800 block of Post Road. The item’s placement on the council agenda signals that the city treated the case as legally sensitive, per the meeting agenda from the City of San Marcos.
Arrests and ICE custody
Video published by the San Marcos Daily Record shows officers ordering the teen to get out of the truck and attempting to pull the driver from the vehicle. The adult passenger, identified as Gerardo Reyes Gonzalez, grabbed his son’s arm and said, “That's my son.” Both men were booked into the Hays County Law Enforcement Center on charges of interfering with public duties, and the Daily Record reports that the adult passenger was shortly taken into ICE custody, which in turn sparked protests in the area, as reported by the San Marcos Daily Record.
Booking and detainer
Jail records show that both Gerardo and his son, Esteban, were booked on charges of interfering with public duties. Esteban, 17, was released on a $2,000 bond the same day. The arresting officer discovered an immigration detainer on the adult passenger after booking, and federal agents later took custody of him, according to KSAT.
Community reaction
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra stood alongside family members and advocates at a press conference and called for transparency from law enforcement, saying, “I do not want our local law enforcement acting like ICE agents.” The defendant’s daughter, Lupe Sarinana, described her father as a 20-year resident and the family breadwinner, called his treatment “inhumane,” and demanded answers from city officials, as detailed by the San Marcos Daily Record.
Legal implications
Immigration detainers are administrative requests from ICE asking local jails to hold an individual for up to 48 hours so federal agents can assume custody. They are not judicial warrants, and practices around honoring them vary by locality, according to the Immigrant Defense Project. The city has said the incident is under review as the police department’s internal investigation moves forward, per the meeting agenda from the City of San Marcos.
The investigation remains open, and officials say they will follow the department’s internal process. Cortina is still on administrative leave while investigators review body-worn camera footage and other evidence. Advocates say they plan to keep pressing for a public accounting of the stop and of the department’s policies on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
