ICE deports family, including deaf boy who wasn’t given his assistive devices

California state superintendent says mother and sons arrested during ICE check-in and deported to Colombia

California’s superintendent is calling for the return of a hearing-impaired six-year-old after he, his mother and his five-year-old sibling were detained on Tuesday while reporting for their check-in at an ICE office in San Francisco and deported to Colombia.

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons were arrested during their visit to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (Isap), said Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP). A relative who was waiting outside for Gutierrez and her sons was unable to hand off the assistive devices necessary for the six-year-old, who is deaf and has 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.”