Congressional Delegation Demands Answers On 8-Year-Old Arrested By ICE

SAN DIEGO, CA — San Diego's congressional delegation Tuesday demanded answers from the Department of Homeland Security over allegations that an 8-year-old child was taken into federal custody after an immigration check-in in San Diego.

Reps. Juan Vargas, Sara Jacobs, and Scott Peters, D-San Diego, and Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, as well as Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both D-California, wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Mullin and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. expressing concerns.

The child is an 8-year-old Haitian boy whose temporary protected status allegedly expired. He is a third grader at Fay Elementary School.

"An [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officer reportedly invoked the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 while taking him into custody, apparently placing the child in restraints and separating him from the person who brought him for his hearing," the letter read. "Video footage appears to show the use of restraints on a child who seemed to pose no threat to those around him, raising serious questions about the handling of this incident. We express concerns about the basis for this action and the harm it may cause a young child who appeared for his required hearing.

"With this letter, we emphasize that the safety and well-being of children and families in San Diego County must remain the highest priority. We also request confirmation on the child's whereabouts, whether his family is aware of his location, and what steps your agencies are taking to ensure he can be reunited with them."

ICE disputed the account in a lengthy statement posted on X, saying it did not take the boy into custody to place him in detention.

"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 agency wrote.

ICE said a man claiming to be the boy's uncle brought him to an immigration check-in Nov. 5 but could not establish legal guardianship under requirements of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

The agency said the boy was then determined to be an unaccompanied alien child and placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

"To ensure the child's safety, ICE placed him in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement," ICE wrote.

The agency also said the child was initially brought to the United States by a man claiming to be his father, who was previously removed to Mexico by Customs and Border Protection and had never been in ICE custody.

ICE also criticized the Biden administration, accusing it of losing track of or placing 450,000 unaccompanied children with unvetted sponsors.

The day after the incident, leaders of the San Diego Unified School District also demanded answers as to the whereabouts of the child. The district claimed the 8-year-old received a letter to meet with an ICE agent. His uncle, with whom he's been living with since the child's father was deported more than a year ago, took him to meet the agent because he did not want to break the law.

"San Diego Unified School District and countless other districts across the nation serve as one of the most stable institutions in a child's life," SDUSD Superintendent Fabi Bagula and other district leaders wrote in a letter to the two above secretaries. "When families are suddenly separated, displaced, detained, or removed from their communities, schools are often left to respond to the resulting trauma and educational disruption. These circumstances place children at significant risk of academic regression, mental health challenges, and long-term instability. We have witnessed situations in which children who should be attending school and participating in a supportive educational environment instead find themselves in government facilities far from their schools, teachers, classmates, and support systems.

"Every child deserves stability, dignity, and access to education. Regardless of immigration status or family circumstances, children should not bear the educational consequences of policy decisions over which they have no control."

The TPS for Haitian nationals expired July 27, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June which determined the Trump administration could cut off temporary legal protections for thousands of Haitians, as well as Syrians. More than 350,000 Haitians live in the United States, including thousands locally.

Haiti suffered under the rule of dictators Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier from 1957 to 1986, followed by a series of elected presidents, many of whom were military-backed. In recent years, a Transitional Presidential Council was set up as a result of the "Haitian Crisis," a series of protests against corruption in the existing regime as well as ongoing armed gang violence.

Since the `crisis' began in 2018, thousands have been killed and more than 600,000 Haitians have been displaced -- many to the United States.

This summer's Supreme Court ruling is not the first time Haiti has come up in the Trump administration, with the president using an expletive to describe Haiti and African countries during a 2018 closed-door meeting. In 2024, Trump repeated a baseless claim during a presidential debate that Haitian immigrants were "eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They're eating -- they are eating the pets of the people that live there."

The Obama administration initially granted Haitians TPS in 2010 after a 7.0 earthquake struck the island, causing more than 200,000 deaths and the collapse of hundreds of thousands of buildings.

By RYAN MURRAY / City News Service