ICE deports deaf six-year-old and family to Colombia

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her two sons were arrested while reporting to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program in San Francisco and were deported to Colombia. A relative waiting outside was unable to hand the assistive devices needed by the six-year-old, who is deaf and uses a cochlear implant, the Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership said.

California superintendent Tony Thurmond urged federal authorities to return the boy, saying, "No child should be ripped from their home community and hidden in a detention center, especially not a Deaf child who is being deprived of the ability to communicate and understand what is happening to him." He added, "These inhumane and illegal attacks on our families must end." Immigration attorneys said they were given conflicting information as they tried to file habeas petitions, with family members told first that the group would be bound for a detention center in Louisiana, then Phoenix, and then Washington state.

United States, San Francisco

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