Last week, Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez was deported to Colombia with her two children, a 4-year-old and a deaf 6-year-old, who attends the California School for the Deaf in Fremont.
According to Gutierrez’s lawyer, during a routine check-in on March 3, in San Francisco her family was forced to sign deportation papers and was not allowed to retrieve her 6-year-old son’s hearing device.
“My staff has just landed in Columbia, and is placing the hearing devices back in the boy’s ear,” said Representative Eric Swalwell in a news conference in front of Hayward City Hall.
Representative Swalwell also said that he is working with the family’s counsel to return them to the East Bay under humanitarian parole.
“We will not stand by as ICE tears our families apart and endangers innocent children,” said Swalwell.
Update from March 19:
At a Wednesday, March 18, livestreamed press conference, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond shared that he was been working with the family, their attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker and California school for the Deaf staff to advocate for the Gutierrez family’s humanitarian parole to return to the United States.
