Dominic Anthony Walsh/ Houston Public Media
Cesar Espinoza, executive director of FIEL, was removed from Houston city council chambers on Oct. 16, 2025.
The executive director of a local immigrant rights organization was removed from a Houston City Council meeting on Wednesday after suggesting that city officials lied about the recent detention of a 15-year-old boy with autism.
“This child is autistic and he’s failed an education … and he hasn’t gotten the proper care he deserves because of failing administrations at the federal, county, and different levels … don’t lie Whitmire, don’t lie Diaz,” Cesar Espinosa, the executive director of FIEL Houston, shouted as police officers escorted him out of the council chambers.
The outburst at city hall happened more than a week after 15-year-old Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia reportedly went missing while he was selling fruit with his mother, Maria Garcia, near the intersection of Clay and Hempstead roads. Espinosa said Houston Police Department officers found the teen on Oct. 5 but informed his family he was placed with federal officials.
In an email, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told Gonzalez Garcia’s family that he was placed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to FIEL. The Office of Refugee Resettlement is a branch of the federal health department that offers services for refugees and “unaccompanied alien children,” according to its website.
Gonzalez Garcia has also received surgery to remove his appendix while in the custody of the federal refugee office, FIEL has said.
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Maria Garcia and Espinosa, who has raised questions about whether Houston police are working with ICE, spoke about the teen’s detention during a public comment period of the city council meeting on Tuesday. The next day, Mayor John Whitmire urged Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz to recount the circumstances leading up to the teen’s discovery by officers.
During city council on Wednesday, Diaz said that Houston Fire Department firefighters first located the 15-year-old, adding that the boy claimed to be homeless, from another country and had no parents or family in the area. Diaz said city officials exhausted all options before Gonzalez Garcia was placed with the refugee resettlement office, where the teen allegedly gave officials a different name. Detectives notified the mother of her son’s whereabouts shortly after she held a news conference with FIEL to demand answers, Diaz said.
Concerns were raised by city council members on Wednesday after Diaz said that neither the police department nor the Office of Refugee Resettlement received a missing persons hit when they ran the name provided by the teen. They also asked the police chief questions about the teen’s disability, which Diaz earlier said was not immediately recognizable to officers.
“If you don’t as a parent of a special needs child have a bracelet, something sown to their clothes, or let us know at the police department that on your street there’s a special needs child, then we don’t know,” Diaz said. “So we’re not clinicians, we’re just here to recognize there’s a need.”
Following his removal from council chambers on Wednesday, Espinosa accused Diaz and Whitmire of lying about the circumstances surrounding the teen’s detention with federal officials.
“Neither the city of Houston or the federal government are being transparent with anybody,” Espinosa said. “And to sit here and to say that we’re lying … I want to ask Mayor Whitmire and the chief of police, have they met Emmanuel?”
Diaz and Whitmire referred to Espinosa’s claims as misinformation.