When a deaf 6-year-old was deported, Rep. Swalwell sent staff to Colombia to deliver hearing aids
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“What was the sin?” asked Rep.Eric Swallwell on Monday, decrying the deportation of a 6-year-old deaf boy and his family when they showed up for a “routine immigration check.”The Bay Area Democrat said that his staff had traveled to Colombia to return hearing aids to the boy.
According to his family’s attorney, Nikolas De Bremaeker, the boy was separated from the medical devices during the deportation process.Swalwell’s staff is now working with De Bremaeker to try to return the family to the U.S.
on humanitarian parole and re-enroll 6-year-old Joseph in the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, he announced Monday at a news conference in Hayward.The Department of Homeland Security has stood by its decision to deport the family.A department spokesperson said in a statement Friday that the mother, 28-year-old Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez, was “an illegal alien from Colombia” who “illegally entered the United States in 2022 and was RELEASED into our country under the Biden administration.” She was issued a removal order on Nov.
25, 2024, according to the spokesperson.Rodriguez Gutierrez was under a supervisory order and required to periodically check in with an immigration officer or face deportation for failing to report, according to De Bremaeker.Last week, she believed she was showing up for a regular check-in with her 4- and 6-year-old children when the three of them were deported, he said.De Bremaeker said he was then given misleading information about the family’s location, which he alleged violated their due process and limited his ability to try to legally intervene and block the deportation.
The case first drew widespread attention Friday when De Bremaeker and state Supt.of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond held a news conference in Los Angeles.
Thurmond, who is running for governor, expressed outrage over the boy’s deportation and said he’d ...