A three-year-old girl lost two teeth and suffered bite wounds across her face after a man authorities identify as an illegal immigrant from India attacked her and her mother outside a park restroom in San Antonio on April 18, the Department of Homeland Security told the New York Post. DHS says the assault never should have happened, because the Biden administration had a chance to revoke the man's visa after an earlier felony arrest and chose not to.
The accused, 24-year-old Atharva Vyas, entered the United States from India in August 2023 on a student visa. Three months later, he was arrested on the University of Texas campus for felony assault. The college contacted ICE. But federal officials under President Joe Biden determined the crime was not "egregious" enough to warrant visa revocation, DHS told the Post.
Vyas remained in the country. And on a Friday afternoon in April, Gabriella Perez, 27, says he charged at her and her daughter outside a restroom at Espada Park.
The Perez family, Gabriella, her 27-year-old partner Xavier Estrada, their daughter Amelia, and grandfather Richard Ariaza, had driven from their home in LaCoste to spend the day fishing at the San Antonio park. Around 2 p.m., Gabriella took Amelia to the restroom.
When they stepped outside, Gabriella told the Post, a man charged toward them. He grabbed her hair and punched her in the jaw. Then he turned on Amelia.
Gabriella Perez described the scene to the Post:
"That brute was ravaging my baby!"
The three-year-old ended up on the ground. She suffered deep scratches and bite wounds across her face. Two of her front teeth were ripped out. Authorities said Vyas was allegedly under the influence of a substance called "wax," which they described as equivalent to smoking 15 to 20 marijuana joints.
Gabriella screamed for Xavier. Horrified witnesses surged forward. Two men pulled out guns. When San Antonio police officers arrived, they found Vyas drifting in and out of consciousness. EMS transported Amelia and her family to Christus Children's Hospital.
In the emergency room, Gabriella said, her daughter sat in eerie stillness while nurses and doctors worked on her face.
"In the emergency room, the adults were all going crazy while Amelia was suffering shock. She sat eerie calm, like a statue, while the nurses and doctors worked on her poor face."
Gabriella added:
"She didn't make a peep, even though she was in a great deal of pain. It hadn't hit her yet, what happened."
The timeline DHS laid out for the Post raises a straightforward question: why was Vyas still in the country at all? He arrived on an F-1 student visa in August 2023. Within three months, he was arrested for felony assault on the University of Texas campus, serious enough that the university itself contacted ICE.
ICE was aware. The school flagged it. And yet the Biden administration decided the felony assault arrest did not meet the threshold for revoking his visa. DHS characterized the decision bluntly: the prior administration judged the crime was not "egregious" enough.
The pattern of officials declining to act on clear warning signs, whether in immigration enforcement, criminal justice, or government accountability broadly, has become a recurring theme in recent years. In this case, the cost was borne by a family that had no idea the man in their neighborhood park had already been arrested for a violent crime.
Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis made the DHS position explicit in a statement to the Post:
"This barbaric assault against this woman and her 3-year-old child in a park was completely preventable."
Bis went further:
"The Biden administration NEVER should have released this animal following his arrest for assault."
Court records show Vyas was jailed in the Bexar County Detention Center and charged with injury to a child with intent to cause bodily injury, assault causing bodily injury, and illegal entry from a foreign nation. ICE lodged a detainer request with San Antonio police the same day as the alleged attack, asking local authorities to turn him over after he faces the American justice system.
The Trump administration revoked Vyas' F-1 visa in April 2025 based on the earlier assault arrest, the same arrest the Biden administration had reviewed and waved through.
A DHS spokesman told the Post that the department's law enforcement officers are working to prevent further incidents like this one.
"DHS law enforcement is protecting American communities every day from another senseless tragedy like this taking place in another town, to another family."
The contrast between the two administrations' handling of the same case file could hardly be sharper. One looked at a felony assault arrest and shrugged. The other revoked the visa. The question of which approach better protects American families answers itself.
Amelia Perez is three years old. She lost two teeth. She has bite marks on her face. And her mother says the emotional damage may be worse than the physical injuries.
Gabriella Perez described her daughter's condition to the Post:
"She's terrified to sleep. She's lashing out, angry. She doesn't understand evil like this f***ing man. She'll never be the same again."
Gabriella said she screamed for someone, anyone, to stop the attack.
"I was screaming 'Shoot him! Shoot him.'"
The family has set up a GoFundMe to cover medical costs and recovery. Gabriella wrote on the page that the emotional distress has been overwhelming. In her interview, she struck a tone that was equal parts grief and resolve.
"Even though you try to protect your children, this is a dangerous world with dangerous people."
She asked for prayers. She said the family is focused on healing. But the facts of the case make clear that Gabriella Perez and her daughter were not failed by bad luck. They were failed by a deliberate policy choice, a federal government that had the information, had the legal authority, and chose to do nothing.
When officials at every level decline to enforce the law, whether it involves alleged criminal conduct inside government buildings or immigration violations flagged by a university, the people who pay the price are never the officials who made the call. They are mothers and children at a park on a Friday afternoon.
Walk through the sequence. A foreign national enters on a student visa. He is arrested for felony assault on a university campus. The school reports him to ICE. Federal officials review the case and decide it does not rise to the level of visa revocation. He remains free. Months later, a toddler is bitten, scratched, and has her teeth ripped from her mouth in a public park.
Every checkpoint existed. The student visa system flagged him. The university flagged him. Law enforcement had him in custody. The only thing missing was the will to act.
This is the kind of case that erodes public trust in institutions, not because the system lacked tools, but because the people running it refused to use them. The Biden administration's threshold for "egregious" apparently did not include felony assault. Families in San Antonio are living with the consequences of that judgment.
DHS noted that victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants can contact the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office at 1-855-488-6425. The office exists because cases like this one are not isolated.
The open questions remain significant. What specific standard did Biden-era officials apply when they reviewed Vyas' felony arrest and found it insufficient? How many other visa holders with violent arrest records were similarly left in place? And what accountability, if any, will attach to the officials who made this call?
Those questions deserve answers. But Amelia Perez, who is three, does not have the luxury of waiting for a policy review. She is afraid to sleep. She is missing her front teeth. And the federal government that was supposed to keep her safe had every reason to act, and every tool at its disposal, long before she ever walked out of that restroom.
When the government has the information, the authority, and the precedent, and still does nothing, the word for that is not caution. It is negligence.
