United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported a five-year-old boy and his father to Mexico on Tuesday, August 25, after the father agreed to leave the US instead of remaining in custody with his son at the Dilley Immigration Detention Center in Texas , the family’s attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch told Scripps News.
Liam Tadeo’s father, Victor Martinez Nieto, urged ICE officers during a traffic stop earlier this month in Austin, Texas, to release his son to his mother.
However, Lincoln-Goldfinch claimed that the option was not given to Nieto. “Liam’s father begged ICE to release his five-year-old son to his mother—the same release granted to his three-year-old cousin and his uncle on the side of the road. ICE refused. His father was seen beside him, in handcuffs. “He should be in school, playing soccer and at home with his family.
Video that surfaced on social media earlier showed Liam in tears while being detained on August 16. I am asking ICE to release Liam and his father immediately so that our family can be together again.”
Parents arrested by ICE can bring their children with them to detention or leave them with “a safe person the parent designates, according to the Department of Homeland Security. “The claim that ‘parents have a choice’ between remaining detained with their children and having ICE place their children with a ‘safe person’ is deeply misleading, particularly in this case,” she said. Family members said that they were on their way to a soccer game. “He was supposed to start kindergarten this week, and instead he is being held in an immigration detention center,” she said.
