6-year-old with leukemia detained by ICE. Then this happens
The boy, his mom, and his sister had been held for a month at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.
A 6-year-old boy from Honduras who has leukemia is back in Los Angeles after he and his family were arrested by ICE, sparking public outrage. The boy, his mother, and his sister had been held for a month at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. They were released on Wednesday, according to one of the family’s lawyers and an NBC report.
The release came after a lawsuit was filed on the family’s behalf in federal court in San Antonio.
“We were in the process of putting together a reply brief explaining why the government was wrong to hold them when we learned they were being released,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. “ICE released the family without a court order,” she told NBC News.
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ICE transfers family to shelter before flight to Los Angeles
Mukherjee said ICE transferred the family from the detention center to a shelter in South Texas.
“From there, they were put on a plane and flown to LAX, where they were reunited with their family in Los Angeles,” she said.
Mukherjee added that media attention and “public pressure” played a significant role in securing the family’s release.
Kate Gibson Kumar, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, wrote on Facebook that the release “demonstrates the power we have when we fight back against harmful, un-American policies.”
She continued: “The practice of courthouse arrests is a blatant disregard for those lawfully seeking safety through the government’s own processes, and an even greater disregard for our Constitution and the protections it provides, including due process.”
NBC News asked the Department of Homeland Security whether it still plans to deport the family, but the agency has not responded.
Lawsuit filed against ICE
Lawyers from Columbia University and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit against ICE after the family was arrested following their asylum hearing on May 29 in Los Angeles. According to Gibson Kumar, the mother had been instructed to bring her children to court since they were not in school.
“They arrested the family in the hallway as they were leaving,” she said. “The children were really scared. They were crying.”
Court documents stated that the 6-year-old, identified as N.M.Z., missed a cancer-related medical appointment on June 5 while in detention.
The Department of Homeland Security said the boy had been examined several times while in custody and denied any neglect. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), DHS dismissed reports of medical neglect as “fake news.”
“ICE always prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care,” said DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin last week.
Was diagnosed with Leukemia at age 3
The child was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 3 while still in Honduras. It is a fast-moving but typically curable type of blood cancer in children.
Mukherjee said that when she visited the boy in detention, he showed symptoms consistent with his illness.
“He has easy bruising,” she said. “His right leg had a lot of black-and-blue marks, his left leg had similar marks, and his arms were also bruised. He experiences occasional bone pain and has lost his appetite. These are all pretty concerning signs.”
Family entered US legally
The family legally entered the US on October 26 using the CBP One app, which has since been shut down. They were granted parole.
According to the habeas petition, they fled Honduras after receiving serious death threats.
The government determined the family was neither a flight risk nor a danger, so the mother was not placed on an electronic monitor.
DHS gave them a court date of May 29 to proceed with their asylum case, Mukherjee said.
In the meantime, the family settled in Los Angeles. The children began attending public school and learning English. They also attended church every Sunday.
However, after Donald Trump returned to the presidency, his administration instructed judges to dismiss cases of immigrants who had been in the US for less than two years, making it easier for ICE to deport them quickly.
After a judge suddenly denied their asylum claim, ICE agents were waiting outside the courtroom. They arrested the mother and her two children immediately after the hearing.
