Elena Shore writes for New America Media.

The town of Cactus lost ten percent of its population in the raids, reports the San Antonio-based Spanish newspaper Rumbo.

The church of St. Peter and Paul, in the town of Dumas, just south of Cactus, has been one of the refuges for children whose parents were detained.

Church spokesperson Orlando Gajardo told the newspaper that more than 200 children were affected by the raid, many of them under 10 years old. In the best of cases, Rumbo reports, only one of their parents has been arrested or deported.

The day after the raids, 62 out of the 400 children enrolled at Cactus’s elementary school did not attend class, according to the newspaper. As of Saturday, Dec. 16, no representatives from Child Protective Services had shown up to look after children of those deported.

The majority of those arrested in the Cactus raids (200 of the 295 detainees) are from Guatemala, according to ICE.

Many of the children affected by the ICE raid are U.S. citizens. José Barillas Trennert, the Guatemalan consul in Houston, told Rumbo that he was offering to register the children as Guatemalans so they wouldn’t be taken under the care of the state.

According to the Consul, the majority of detained Guatemalans agreed to voluntary removal to avoid jail, Rumbo reports. “Those who have officlally been deported will be in Guatemala in three weeks,” Barillas told the newspaper.