An 8-year-old Haitian boy who was summoned to check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was taken into federal custody after his appointment Wednesday, sparking outrage among San Diego Unified School District leaders, who said Friday they were unsure where the child was being held.
The boy is a third grader at Fay Elementary School in City Heights and lost Temporary Protected Status earlier this year, according to district officials, who said he was staying with his uncle after his father was deported last year.
Video recorded by a volunteer observer at the federal building in downtown San Diego shows three armed federal agents walking the boy away from ICE’s field office and into an elevator.
SDUSD’s superintendent and school board members were among nearly a dozen community leaders who signed a letter Friday to DHS about the case, calling the boy’s detention “particularly troubling,” and expressing concern more broadly on the Trump administration’s elimination of TPS and its impact on students.
TPS is a humanitarian designation created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It was first granted to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and extended several time since as the island nation falls into deeper crisis. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end TPS for Haitians earlier this year.
The district said the child received a letter to meet with an ICE agent and his uncle took him “because he did not want to break the law.” The agent then took the child into custody, “leaving the uncle distraught, and this 8-year-old without the support of their family, community and their school,” according to the district’s letter.
A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said ICE took the child into custody “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the child’s safety” after his uncle could not establish legal guardianship. DHS denied any wrongdoing and said agents designated the 8-year-old as an unaccompanied minor and placed him in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a 2008 law meant to provide protections for unaccompanied immigrant children.
“Allegations that ICE took a third grader into custody to be placed in detention are false, and any suggestion otherwise 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 spokesperson said.
DHS said Customs and Border Protection previously deported the father to Mexico. It’s not clear where the boy’s mother is.
Guerline Jozef, the executive director of the nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance, said ICE did not give the father an opportunity to transfer guardianship before deporting him “without taking into account the wellbeing of the children left behind.”
The 8-year-old remains in ORR custody and it is unclear if he will be removed from the U.S.
Cody Petterson, a board trustee with the SDUSD, said it’s not clear where the child is being held, but they believe it may be Los Angeles. Either way, Petterson added, it’s “certainly not with family or with a designated caregiver.”
“ICE understands that this is absolutely not where this child should be,” said Petterson. “For us, it’s a very clear case in which there’s no question that the best place for this child is with their caregiver, their uncle, and one of the worst places they could possibly be is in a cage somewhere with nobody they know, not understanding the process, and not understanding what’s about to happen to them.”
The school board is urging the Trump administration to prioritize keeping children as close as possible to their home schools and communities, and to coordinate with local districts before relocating them.
“Every child deserves stability, dignity, and access to education,” the school board said. “Regardless of immigration status or family circumstances, children should not bear the educational consequences of policy decisions over which they have no control.”
This story originally appeared on NBCSanDiego.com.
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