Democratic elected officials are blasting ICE for the deportation of a deaf 6-year-old boy who, according to his lawyer, was detained in California under false pretenses and then sent to Colombia without his specialized hearing devices or due process.
Attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker said that the boy’s mother, Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez, came to the U.S. seeking asylum from domestic violence and was told last week that she needed to bring her two children to a routine check-in to renew the photos ICE had on record for them. But within minutes of arriving, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents “tried to force her to sign a document without explanation, and then pushed the family into a vehicle to be put on a flight to a faraway detention facility, “ De Bremaeker said in a Tuesday statement.
The Department of Homeland Security has stood by its decision to deport the family. A department spokesperson said in a statement Friday that the 28-year-old mother was “an illegal alien from Colombia” who “illegally entered the United States in 2022 and was RELEASED into our country under the Biden administration.” She was issued a removal order on Nov. 25, 2024, according to the spokesperson.
“What was the sin?” asked Rep. Eric Swalwell on Monday, decrying the deportation of 6-year-old Joseph Andrey Londono Rodriguez at a news conference outside Hayward City Hall.
Rep. Eric Swalwell holds a news conference Monday on the deportation of a family from Hayward. Among those at the event was Nikolas De Bremaeker, far left, attorney for the deported family.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The Bay Area Democrat said that his staff had traveled to Colombia to return medical hearing devices to the boy. According to De Bremaeker, the mother pleaded with ICE agents to allow her to retrieve Joseph’s hearing assistive devices when they were detained.
Swalwell’s staff is working with De Bremaeker to try to return the family to the U.S. on humanitarian parole and reenroll Joseph in the California School for the Deaf in Fremont. Joseph’s mother lived in Hayward, worked as a cleaner and a child care worker and had no criminal record, according to the California Department of Education.
State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said he was also pursuing “every available avenue” to return Joseph to his school community.
“The more we learn about the circumstances of Joseph’s deportation, the more disturbing it gets,” Thurmond said in a statement Tuesday. “No child should be brought to court under false pretenses and disappeared to a country where their family is at risk of violence.”
Joseph, whose only language is American Sign Language, is struggling to cope in Colombia, where he is cut off from friends, teachers and community members, De Bremaeker said.
His mother, Rodriguez Gutierrez, was under a supervisory order and required to periodically check in with an immigration officer or face deportation for failing to report, according to De Bremaeker. Last week, she believed she was showing up for a regular check-in with her 4- and 6-year-old children when the three of them were deported, he said.
De Bremaeker said he was then given misleading information about the family’s location, which he alleged violated their due process and limited his ability to try to legally intervene and block the deportation.
The case first drew widespread attention Friday when De Bremaeker and Thurmond held a news conference in Los Angeles. Thurmond, who is running for governor, expressed outrage over the boy’s deportation and said he’d reached out to Swalwell’s office for support.
Then on Monday, Swalwell, who represents the Northern California community of Hayward, where the family lived, condemned the boy’s deportation while taking a swing at the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.
“If you want to deport a cartel boss, everyone here will help you pack their bags, but if you’re coming for a 6-year-old, you have to go through us,” said Swalwell, who is also running for governor.
Swalwell said he was working with Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) to look at “what steps can be taken in Congress to ensure this will not happen again.” He referenced an instance in which a child with Stage 4 cancer was deported as evidence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “inhumane deportation policies.”
In a Friday statement, the Homeland Security spokesperson said that “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.” The spokesperson said Rodriguez Gutierrez chose to be removed with her children on March 5.
Swalwell said his staff would do everything they could to return the family to America.
“How does ruining the life of a 6-year-old deaf child make our community or our country any safer?” he said. “It doesn’t. It makes the country darker.”
Times staff writer Christopher Buchanan contributed to this report.