Joseph and his family fled Colombia four years ago after his mother faced severe domestic violence and feared for his life due to his disability and lack of healthcare and education. The family had been living in Hayward, California, as asylum seekers. Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her two children were detained during a routine check-in at ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office in San Francisco.
Nikolas De Bremaeker, a source cited in the report, stated that ICE did not explain what was happening to Ms. Rodriguez Gutierrez during the check-in, took photos and fingerprints, and pushed the family into a vehicle for a flight to a detention facility within minutes. De Bremaeker also claimed that Ms.
Rodriguez Gutierrez was never given a choice to be removed and never agreed to deportation, and that ICE pressured her to sign a document in a language she did not understand and without access to counsel, but she refused. A relative had Joseph's hearing aids in a car outside the ICE center, but ICE denied Joseph access to them. Joseph was still without his hearing aids at the time of the report.
The family was traumatized by the ordeal. Joseph is severely disabled and unable to access specialized healthcare and education in Colombia. Neither Joseph nor his four-year-old brother is currently attending school in Colombia.
Joseph attended California School for the Deaf at Fremont for three years. De Bremaeker stated that denying Joseph his hearing aids shocks the conscience and violates several laws and the Constitution, and that DHS dragged the children from detention center to detention center, to places not meant for children, especially those with severe disabilities, which is inhuman, illegal, and unconstitutional. De Bremaeker was given misleading information and could not find the family for two days before tracking them to a detention center in Arizona before their removal to South America.
The specific laws or constitutional provisions allegedly violated by ICE's actions have not been detailed, and the response from DHS or ICE regarding these allegations remains unclear. The family's current legal status or asylum claim, and why it was denied, is also unknown.