A six-year-old deaf boy has been deported from the United States with family members – and the Department of Homeland Security refused to allow him his hearing aid before departure, a lawyer has said.
The child, his younger brother and mother, Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez, were detained earlier this week during a routine check-in at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office in San Francisco. The family were asylum seekers from Colombia, and had been living in Hayward, California, for five years.
Nikolas De Bremaeker, an attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza, said he was given misleading information and was unable to find the family for two days before tracking them down to a detention center in Arizona. They have since been deported to Colombia.
De Bremaeker said Gutierrez, who works in childcare, had an order of removal but no criminal record and therefore had a legal right to be notified prior to deportation.
At a news conference, the attorney said that while the mother and two boys were at the ICE center in San Francisco, a relative had gone to give the six-year-old his hearing aid, which he relies on communicate, but was turned away by officials.
“This child has been dragged from detention center to detention center, to places that are not meant for children,” Bremaeker said, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“They are definitely not built for children with severe disabilities. It’s inhuman, illegal, and unconstitutional.”
The six-year-old boy attended California School for the Deaf at Fremont for three years, according to Tony Thurmond, California Superintendent of Public Instruction. He demanded the return of the boy to California at the news conference.
Thurmond said he was “deeply disturbed” that the boy was deported without access to his necessary medical devices. “This unnecessary cruelty must end,” he said.
“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. I am calling on the federal government to return our student to his school community now.”
De Bremaeker said he had spoken Friday to Gutierrez, and that she and her children were traumatized by the ordeal.The Independent has contacted the attorney for further updates.
In a statement to The Independent, a DHS spokesperson denied that Gutierrez had not received due process.
“She received full due process and was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on November 25, 2024,” the statement read.
“ICE does NOT separate families. Parents are given a choice: They can be removed with their children or place them with a safe person they designate. This is consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement. Gutierrez chose to be removed with her children, and they returned to their home on March 5.”
The spokesperson added: “Being in detention and in the country illegally is a choice. Parents can avoid detention and receive a free flight and $2,600 with the CBP Home app. By using the CBP Home app illegal aliens reserve the chance to come back the right legal way and live the American dream.”
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