ICE Newark Arrests Salvadoran National
Charged in Fatal Liberty Island Boat Capsizing
On the night of August 8, 2026, a 22-foot speedboat carrying 14 people on an unlicensed, paid harbor tour capsized in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty. A 27-year-old mother and her 5-month-old daughter drowned. Eleven or twelve others were pulled from the water alive.
Prosecutors say the man piloting the boat, Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Urmana, 46, held no Merchant Mariner Credential, carried no Coast Guard Certificate of Inspection, and had already run at least two paid tours for the same outfit before that night's tour went wrong. ICE arrested him August 11 on a federal complaint; he is now held in ICE custody pending resolution of state and federal charges.
This was not a smuggling case. Hernandez-Urmana is accused of running an illegal commercial charter business — the kind of unlicensed harbor-tour operation that, according to a licensed New York captain who spoke to ABC7, a paying customer has almost no way to identify before boarding.
- 14 — people aboard a boat with a Coast Guard-certified maximum capacity of 10 · Source: DOJ / USAO-SDNY
- $1,000 — the fee prosecutors say Hernandez-Urmana was paid for the tour · Source: DOJ / USAO-SDNY
- 2 dead — Sara Sanchez, 27, and her 5-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia, both of Queens · Source: NY1
- 13 counts — state reckless-endangerment charges filed by NYPD, $50,000 bail · Source: CBS News New York
- $31,500+ — raised in the first day of a GoFundMe for the family's funeral costs · Source: NY1
The tour left the dock that Saturday evening and was roughly three hours and twenty minutes in when it approached the Statue of Liberty around 10:25 p.m. According to the federal complaint, Hernandez-Urmana made a U-turn that put the boat broadside to a swell — possibly wake thrown off by a passing vessel — and rather than slow down, he throttled forward to try to power through it. The boat capsized, spilling all 14 people into New York Harbor.
The response was fast and large: NYPD's harbor unit, scuba team, and aviation unit, the U.S. Coast Guard, and a nearby vessel operated by the tour company Sea the City all converged on the scene. Eleven or twelve passengers were pulled from the water and survived. Sara Sanchez, 27, and her 5-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia, were recovered and rushed to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in critical condition. Both were later pronounced dead. Prosecutors say no infant-appropriate flotation device was aboard for Antonella.
Antonella's father, Andres Garcia, was also aboard with the family. He survived, was hospitalized, and has since been discharged; he has a surviving young son. Garcia's coworkers at Il Punto Ristorante in Queens organized a GoFundMe that raised more than $31,500 in its first day to cover funeral costs for his wife and daughter.
According to prosecutors, this was at least the third paid harbor tour Hernandez-Urmana had piloted for the same operation, having started with the company as a limousine driver before moving behind the wheel of a boat. He was paid roughly $1,000 per trip, the complaint says. He held no Merchant Mariner Credential — the license the Coast Guard requires of anyone operating a commercial passenger vessel — and the boat itself carried no current Coast Guard Certificate of Inspection.
Federal rules require any vessel carrying six or more paying passengers to pass an annual Coast Guard safety inspection and to be piloted by a licensed captain. Hernandez-Urmana's boat had 14 people aboard against a certified capacity of 10 — and, prosecutors say, no license, no inspection, and no captain qualified to carry any of them. This is not framed in the complaint as a human-smuggling operation. It is charged as an illegal commercial charter business that took paying customers' money for a service it was not legally permitted to provide.
Hernandez-Urmana faces charges on three separate tracks, and he is presumed innocent on all of them. NYPD filed 13 counts of reckless endangerment on August 9, with bail set at $50,000. The Coast Guard Investigative Service referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which charged him federally with two counts of misconduct and neglect of a ship officer resulting in death — a felony carrying serious prison exposure if he is convicted. ICE separately holds him on the civil immigration violation of being present in the United States without lawful status.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald of the Southern District of New York said: “Federal regulations and maritime safety protocols exist to protect the lives and wellbeing of passengers on commercial vessels.” She added that “the defendant allegedly flouted those regulations when he transported paying customers on a commercial vessel without appropriate licenses, overcrowded the vessel, and took on a 5-month-old infant passenger.”
CGIS Assistant Director Josh Packer put it more bluntly: “Illegal charter operations gamble with human life, and in this case, the alleged conduct led to an unthinkable tragedy.” Hernandez-Urmana was released from U.S. Marshals custody on the federal complaint into ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Newark custody on August 11. The government says it intends to seek his removal once the criminal case is resolved — not that removal has already occurred.
ICE and DHS gave two different accounts of how Hernandez-Urmana entered the country, and this page presents both rather than picking one. ICE's release says he “entered the U.S. without being admitted, inspected or paroled more than 25 years ago” — a pre-2001 unlawful entry. DHS's separate August 19 release says he “entered the United States illegally through Texas in 2007 ... lying to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen” — a 2007 entry involving an inspection he is alleged to have gotten through by fraud. DHS's release also spells his surname “Hernandez-Umana,” a variant that appears across several outlets. The two federal accounts of his own government's immigration history do not agree with each other, and neither release explains the discrepancy.
Acting ICE Director David J. Venturella said: “Hernandez-Urmana has a criminal history spanning three states that includes soliciting prostitution, assault, terroristic threats and reckless endangerment. Now he's accused of operating a boat with deadly consequences — taking the lives of a 27-year-old mother and her five-month-old daughter ... This man entered the U.S. without being admitted, inspected or paroled more than 25 years ago, and ICE has arrested him twice.” ICE's release does not detail the circumstances of either prior arrest.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said: “This criminal illegal alien was illegally and recklessly conducting unlicensed boat tours in New York Harbor when his boat capsized, killing a 27-year-old woman and her 5-month-old baby.” The prior criminal history ICE cites — soliciting prostitution, assault, terroristic threats, reckless endangerment — comes with no case numbers or court records in either release.
The harder question is how an unlicensed, uninspected boat was able to sell tickets in one of the most heavily trafficked harbors in the country. Licensed operator Capt. Mike Zlotowicz of Zenith Yacht Charters told ABC7 the problem is invisible to customers by design: “There is absolutely no way for a member of the public to ascertain which ones of these are being run by licensed mariners-professional companies.” A similar capsizing on the Hudson River in 2022 prompted only a brief enforcement sweep — about two weeks, ABC7 reported — before it lapsed.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D) called for exactly that kind of sustained follow-through: “I'm hopeful the federal investigation will determine whether this boat operator was running an illegal charter business. If that proves to be the case, we need accountability and stronger safeguards to ensure every New Yorker can enjoy our waterways safely.” Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-NYC) offered condolences without weighing in on enforcement: “I was heartbroken to learn about the tragic boating incident in New York Harbor that killed a young mother and her five-month-old daughter, and my thoughts are with the family and their loved ones as they grieve this devastating loss.”
Neither statement addresses the enforcement gap Zlotowicz described or the 2022 precedent ABC7 documented. Whether that gap gets closed, or whether it lapses the way it did after the last capsizing, is the open question the case leaves behind — regardless of how the criminal charges against Hernandez-Urmana are ultimately resolved.
Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Urmana, 46 — the Salvadoran national charged with operating the boat; presumed innocent on all pending charges.
Acting ICE Director David J. Venturella — announced the arrest and cited Hernandez-Urmana's prior arrests and criminal history.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin — issued the Aug. 19 DHS statement giving a 2007 Texas-entry account that differs from ICE's.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald (SDNY) — announced the federal misconduct-and-neglect charges.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-NYC) — offered condolences to the victims' family.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D) — called for stronger safeguards against illegal charter operations.
“Illegal charter operations gamble with human life, and in this case, the alleged conduct led to an unthinkable tragedy.”
Josh Packer, Assistant Director, Coast Guard Investigative Service
A mother and her infant daughter are dead because prosecutors say a man with no maritime license, running an illegal charter business, loaded 14 people onto a 10-person boat and throttled it into a swell instead of slowing down. He is charged, not convicted, and the government's own account of his immigration history contradicts itself. What isn't in dispute is that the regulatory gap that let an unlicensed tour sell tickets in New York Harbor has been documented before — and closed only briefly, once.
