By Anissa Rivera and Kristy Hutchings, Southern California News Group, and Robert Solanga, Bay Area News Group
A six-year-old deaf boy who attended the California School for the Deaf at Fremont, alongside his mother and brother, have been detained and deported by federal immigration agents, according to California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.
At a Friday, March 6 news conference at the Diagnostic Center on the campus of Cal State University Los Angeles, Thurmond demanded the immediate return of the deaf 6-year-old boy, his 5-year-old sibling and his 28-year-old mother to California.
A lawyer for the deaf child’s family said he spoke with the mother, Lesley Rodriguez Gutierrez, on Friday. She confirmed that she and her children have been deported to Colombia, three days after they attended a routine U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in in Hayward in Northern California.
The attorney, Nikolas De Bremaeker of Centro Legal de la Raza/ACILEP, said Friday the family is “traumatized and horrified by the past few days.”
ICE, California Border Patrol, and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment at the time of writing.
Thurmond and the attorney stressed that Rodriguez Gutierrez was in compliance with her asylum application. She arrived in the U.S. four years ago and works as a child care worker and cleaner.
“Here’s a mom who’s at an appointment with immigration officials, doing the right things, and they experience the worst punishment,” said Thurmond. “How cruel could you be towards this family? Again, this is a student who needs access to medical devices, (and in) a program where he can receive support and care — not in some detention center, not in some cell, living in squalor and poor conditions.”
The 6-year-old child, who lived in Hayward, attended the California School for the Deaf in Fremont. The child was home sick from school Tuesday, March 3, the day of the ICE check-in appointment, which he attended with his mother, Thurmond said Friday. He was detained at the appointment alongside his mother without vital medical equipment to help him hear, Thurmond said.
“I am sick to my stomach that someone would abduct a 6-year-old child who has a disability when his mother was reporting to a center and doing what was right,” Thurmond said Friday. “This is a young man who is without the devices that allow him to deal with his disability and is no longer in an environment that supports him.”
De Bremaeker, the family’s attorney, and Thurmond said Friday that ICE officials he spoke with about the case lied about the family’s whereabouts in order to thwart their legal options.
The attorney told KTVU previously that advocates trying to locate the family were initially told they were in Louisiana or Washington State, when they were actually being held in Phoenix. That, De Bremaeker said, impeded efforts to submit emergency court filings to prevent their removal from the country without due process.
“This is no way for a democracy to work, with officials completely obstructing this family’s access to legal counsel,” De Bremaeker said Friday. “It is inhumane, illegal and unconstitutional for this to happen.”
Jeannette Zanipatin, director of policy and advocacy for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said what happened is a moral outrage and profound abuse of power.
“This is not enforcement,” Zanipatin said. “It is plain cruelty. No government that claims to respect human rights should ever treat a mother and her children in this manner. Families should not be disappeared into the immigration detention system.”
Thurmond, meanwhile, continued his call for the federal government to return the family back to Hayward. He specially called out Markwayne Mullen, the Oklahoma senator who was recently tapped by President Donald Trump as the new Secretary of Homeland Security after Kristi Noem was ousted from the position.
“Senator Mullen, you’ve shown that you’re a tough guy. Well if you’re a tough guy, get on the damn phone, call Donald Trump, and have this student released and returned so we can continue to provide care for this young man,” Thurmond said.
The state superintendent also noted that he is in contact with Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff about the situation.