Democratic lawmakers in California are demanding answers from the Trump administration about the safety and whereabouts of an eight-year-old Haitian boy who they say was restrained and taken into custody by federal immigration agents during a recording last week.
Video obtained by NBC News shows the third grader being taken away by three armed officers after being summoned to what his family said was a routine immigration appointment in San Diego on November 4.
On Tuesday, California Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff joined four Democratic congressmen in sending an oversight letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, demanding an explanation.
“Video footage appears to show the use of restraints on a child who appeared to pose no threat to those around him, raising serious questions about the handling of this incident,” the lawmakers wrote. “We express our concerns about the basis for this action and the harm it may cause to a young child who has appeared for his or her required hearing.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Juan Vargas, one of the signatories, told the Guardian he had contacted the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services “multiple times” but received no response.
The letter, the spokesperson said, seeks to “confirm the child’s whereabouts, whether or not the child’s family is aware of their location and what steps agencies are taking to ensure they can be found.”
The Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigration advocacy group, said the boy, who attends the city’s Fay Elementary School, was in the care of his uncle and cousins after his father was deported last year.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the group, told KNSD, NBC’s news affiliate in San Diego, that she learned he was arrested after his uncle took him to his appointment and then transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a government agency under the Department of Health and Human Services.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took the child into custody “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure his safety.”
The uncle, the spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian, was unable to prove he had legal guardianship — and that authorities were obligated by federal anti-trafficking laws to take the boy into care as an “unaccompanied alien child.”
“Allegations that ICE took a third grader into custody are false, and any suggestion to the contrary is a depraved attempt to smear our ICE law enforcement officers and undermine the work of President Trump and Secretary Mullin to protect children,” the statement said.
He said the boy did not have legal immigration status and was brought to the United States by his father, who was then deported to Mexico by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), another federal immigration enforcement agency.
Jozef told NBC that the father’s abrupt expulsion meant there was no possibility of transferring formal legal guardianship to the boy’s relatives in the United States.
“His father was already taken from him and deported, now this administration has deprived him of the stability, family and community that every child deserves,” she said. “I’m sure he’s scared, he’s traumatized.”
Community leaders, including the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Board of Trustees and Superintendent, have written to ICE to express concern about the Trump administration’s decision to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) safeguards for Haitians in the United States and its impact on families.
“ICE understands that this is absolutely not where this child should be,” SDUSD administrator Cody Petterson told NBC.
“For us, this is a very clear case where there is no doubt that the best place for this child is with his guardian, his uncle, and one of the worst places he could be is in a cage somewhere with no one he knows, not understanding the process and not understanding what is going to happen to him.”
Jozef said the Haitian community was living “under a cloud of terror” and that the loss of TPS protections was “incredibly painful” for families who had built lives in the United States.
“As soon as they kidnap or take a person into the community, we don’t know if we’ll ever hear from them again,” she said.
In an interview on Sunday, Donald Trump acknowledged that the mass deportation policy he pursued during his second presidency was “too harsh” for many people – and contributed to the Republican Party’s crushing defeat in the November 3 midterm elections.
The US president acknowledged in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that aggressive immigration enforcement measures had “both helped and hurt” – and hinted he would take a softer approach for the remaining two years of his term.
Gn headline
