“We are calling for the immediate return of this young man and his family,” Thurmond said. “This is a student who needs access to medical devices, hearing aids, and he needs to be in a program where he can receive support and care — not in some detention center, not in some cell living in squalor and poor conditions.”
Nikolas De Bremaeker, an attorney with Centro Legal De La Raza, said that in the days since their arrest, advocates have been trying to locate the family and have been misled about their whereabouts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
“We were told at every point that the family was at a different location, and even up to last night when I spoke with ICE, they told me a different location than where they actually were,” he told reporters. “This is no way for a democracy to work. This is a complete obstruction of access to council.”
On Friday, De Bremaeker said he was able to speak with Rodriguez Gutierrez and confirm that she and her sons were deported to Colombia. Gutierrez migrated to the U.S from Colombia four years ago. She had no criminal record, according to De Bremaeker.
De Bremaeker said that when they were arrested, another family member was located outside of the ICE office on 478 Tehama St. in San Francisco with the medical equipment that Rodriguez Gutierrez’s son needed, but was prevented from delivering it.
“It’s inhumane, it’s illegal, and it’s unconstitutional for this to happen,” he said Friday, adding that sign language in Colombia is different from the American Sign Language that the young student had been learning here. The child attends the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, and had been homesick on Tuesday.
“It’s incredibly cruel to rip a child, as they are thriving and not only using the assistive devices that they need … out of this incredibly brave and strong progress that he has made,” De Bremaeker said.
On Friday, Thurmond called on Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, President Donald Trump’s newly announced nominee for Homeland Security secretary, to demand the family’s return.
“Lesly did exactly what the government asked of her — she showed up to a scheduled immigration check-in in good faith and instead was taken away into custody along with her children,” said Jeannette Zanipatin, director of policy, advocacy and litigation at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. “That is not enforcement. It is plain cruelty.”
KQED’s Ayah Ali-Ahmad contributed to this report.
