California’s superintendent of public instruction has demanded the return of a hearing-impaired six-year-old boy who was deported to Colombia along with his mother and younger sibling after they were detained during a scheduled check-in with US immigration authorities in San Francisco.
Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her two sons, aged six and five, were taken into custody on Tuesday while attending an appointment under Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), according to the Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP).
A family member waiting outside the office said they were unable to pass along the assistive equipment required by the six-year-old, who is deaf and relies on a cochlear implant.
“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,” Tony Thurmond, the California superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement on Friday. “I am calling on the federal government to return our student to his school community now. These inhumane and illegal attacks on our families must end.”
Immigration advocates argue the family had strong humanitarian grounds to avoid deportation.
“They had strong humanitarian reasons why they should not be deported and they should have had their safeguards,” said Nikolas De Bremaeker, managing attorney for ACILEP. “Regardless of the status around deportation, humanity should stop them from sending a six-year-old into a life-threatening situation.”
Attorneys representing the family say they faced confusion and conflicting information from ICE officials while attempting to file habeas petitions challenging the deportation. According to De Bremaeker, relatives were first told that Gutierrez and her children were being transported to a detention facility in Louisiana. Later, they were informed the family was headed to Phoenix, Arizona, and then possibly Washington state.
“It very much feels intentional,” De Bremaeker said of the lack of information. “And it’s chaotic and irresponsible at best and intentional and deceptive at worst.”
ICE did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on Gutierrez’s case.
Gutierrez and her children were eventually taken briefly to a detention facility in Phoenix before being deported to Colombia. De Bremaeker believes the shifting information about the family’s location may have been a deliberate tactic to prevent immigration lawyers from filing legal petitions in the appropriate jurisdictions.
“There was so much chaos and we weren’t able to do anything to get these fillings – that we otherwise would have – done because of this pattern created by [ICE],” De Bremaeker added.
Gutierrez and her sons first entered the United States in 2022. She applied for asylum the following year. Although a judge initially denied the application and ordered her removal, she appealed the decision and was placed under a supervision order. Under the arrangement, she was required to check in monthly through ISAP and submit weekly updates via a smartphone application, according to De Bremaeker.
Following the family’s deportation, teachers, school administrators and California’s superintendent have urged federal authorities to allow the six-year-old to return to the United States so he can continue receiving specialized educational support.
Educators say the child communicates only through American Sign Language (ASL), and being forced to relocate to Colombia could severely impact his developmental progress.
“[The student] receives instructions that are carefully tailored to his learning profile and language development,” Thurmond wrote in a 5 March letter. “Because of this, remaining in an environment where ASL is the primary language of instruction is essential for his continued language development and academic progress and overall well-being.”
A teacher specialist from the boy’s school also expressed concern that he may lose access to the specialized education that has helped him begin communicating effectively.
“Detention for any individual is traumatic. Consider the complexities when the individual is a six-year-old deaf child whose only access to the world is through ASL, a language that he has begun to learn in the past two years,” she wrote. “These were not opportunities that they had in their home country. These were the reasons that [his] family emigrated to the United States, and specifically to the Bay Area of California.”
Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday, Thurmond also urged newly appointed Department of Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin to intervene and push for the child’s return.
“Senator Mullin, you’ve shown that you’re a tough guy. If you’re a tough guy get on the damn phone, call Donald Trump and have this student released and returned so that we can continue to provide care for this young man.”
