The Child ICE Took: What We Know

Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement / Public domain

He is eight years old. He is in third grade. He went with his uncle to a routine check-in at a federal building in San Diego on November 4, because that is what his family was told to do. He did not come home. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him, and as of this writing, he is still in federal custody. This is what we know. What we do not know is almost as damning.

Here is what happened, as best as it can be pieced together from the reporting. The boy is Haitian. He is eight. He went to the federal building with his uncle for a check-in, the kind of appointment that immigrant families are required to keep, the kind that is supposed to be routine. His uncle had documentation showing their relationship. It did not matter. ICE decided the boy was an unaccompanied minor, took him into custody, and separated him from the only family member he had with him. An eight-year-old child, in a federal building, with his uncle standing right there, was declared unaccompanied. Read that sentence again, because it does not get less absurd the third time.

His uncle did everything right. He brought the paperwork. He showed up. He followed the rules. The system took the child anyway, and then the system did what it always does when it does something indefensible: it went quiet. The boy's name has not been published, and we will not publish it here, because he is a child and he deserves his privacy. But his age is known. His grade is known. His city is known. What is not known is where he is tonight, who is taking care of him, when he will see his family again, or why any of this was necessary in the first place.

Democrats in Congress are demanding answers, and they should, because this is the question that never gets answered. What is the purpose of taking an eight-year-old from his uncle at a check-in? What threat does a third-grader pose? What does the government gain by putting a child in federal custody, away from the family that brought him to the appointment in the first place? There is no answer that makes sense, because there is no sense to it. It is cruelty as policy, carried out by people who have been told that cruelty is the job.

Why this matters is not a matter of opinion. A government that will take a child from his uncle at a routine appointment will take a child from anywhere. The check-in was supposed to be the safe path, the thing you do when you are following the rules. If following the rules ends with your eight-year-old in federal custody, then there is no safe path. That is the message this case sends to every immigrant family in America, and it is a message that will echo far beyond San Diego: do not trust the process, do not show up, do not believe the people who tell you to. That is the opposite of what a government is supposed to do.

What happens next is up to the people who are demanding answers, and to the rest of us. The boy needs to be reunited with his family. The policy that took him needs to be named for what it is. And the people who run it need to understand that the public is watching, that an eight-year-old in third grade is not a border threat, and that no amount of paperwork or procedure can make taking him right.

Here is what we know: an eight-year-old boy went to a check-in with his uncle, and the government took him. Here is what we do not know: when he comes home. That is the story, and it is not over.

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