What began as a routine immigration check-in in downtown San Francisco has turned into a frantic search for a Bay Area mother and her two young sons, with attorneys accusing federal officials of sowing confusion about where the family was taken.
Immigration lawyers said today they have been unable to locate Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez or her boys, ages 5 and 7, after federal agents arrested them during a scheduled ICE appointment in San Francisco on Tuesday. Advocates said the three were taken into custody together, and that the older child was reportedly separated from his hearing aids in the process.
Family members and immigrant-rights advocates said they have received conflicting accounts of the family’s whereabouts and have not been able to reach Gutierrez directly. They warned that abruptly moving a child with significant disabilities can upend crucial medical treatment and special-education support that are often painstakingly assembled over years.
Centro Legal de la Raza attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker told the San Francisco Chronicle that Gutierrez reported for a check-in at the ICE office on Tehama Street, where agents arrested her and the children. Since then, he said, neither relatives nor counsel have been able to track where they were taken.
According to the Chronicle, De Bremaeker said ICE officials provided confusing and, at times, inaccurate information about where Gutierrez and her sons had been sent. A family member later received a brief call from Gutierrez saying she and the children were “en route to Colombia,” a development her attorneys did not anticipate and are now scrambling to understand. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Attorneys Say Lightning-Fast Transfers Look Tactical
De Bremaeker told the paper he suspects ICE moved Gutierrez out of California quickly in order to make it harder for her lawyers to file a habeas corpus petition that could challenge the detention. In his view, the timing and lack of clarity were not exactly random.
Attorneys also reported that Gutierrez did not appear in ICE’s public detainee locator when they checked, which narrowed their options for immediate emergency filings in federal court. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Why Tracking Someone in ICE Custody Can Feel Like a Maze
ICE runs an Online Detainee Locator that is supposed to show whether someone is in immigration custody and where they are held. In practice, advocates say, the system has big blind spots. People who are in transit, in hospitals or placed in community facilities may not show up at all.
Legal scholars note that when detainees are transferred far from home, habeas petitions often have to be filed in the federal district where the person is actually confined. That can strand families and local lawyers on the sidelines, while out-of-state courts and unfamiliar attorneys scramble to catch up.
The practice of moving people to far-flung facilities and cycling them rapidly through transfers has been extensively documented in scholarship and reporting, which warns that such moves routinely undercut access to lawyers and to the courts themselves. See the analysis in the Michigan Law Review.
Advocates Mobilize While Families Demand Answers
As word of the arrest spread, staff at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont reportedly wrote letters to support Gutierrez’s immigration case, stressing that her older son needs stable, ongoing access to specialized education and services that are not easily replicated someplace new.
Immigrant-rights organizations, attorneys and rapid-response networks said they are burning up the phones to ICE field offices, contacting legal hotlines and leaning on elected officials in an effort to locate the family and ensure the children receive appropriate care while in custody.
Advocates say this is not an isolated Bay Area story. Similar incidents this year have involved people being moved out of state shortly after arrest, a pattern they argue makes it far more difficult to keep families in contact and to mount timely legal challenges. For an example of recent out-of-state transfers, see reporting by KQED.
