Wearing a pressed white shirt and dress pants, a Haitian boy showed up for a routine immigration appointment in downtown San Diego. Moments later, three immigration agents led away the elegantly dressed 8-year-old boy. As of Monday, his loved ones don’t know exactly where he is being held, a California lawmaker said. The scene was captured on video that NBC San Diego obtained on Friday. The video was recorded Wednesday by a volunteer observer of immigration procedures at the ICE field office. The San Diego Unified School District and members of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrant rights group, said the boy was separated from his cousins and uncle, who have been caring for him after his father was deported last year. Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said in a statement Monday that although the uncle followed all the rules, “the boy was detained and subsequently transferred to the Refugee Resettlement Office,” which is responsible for custody of children considered unaccompanied minors. The boy, whose name has not been publicly identified, is in third grade at Fay Elementary School. He was stripped of his immigration protections this summer after a Supreme Court decision allowed President Donald Trump to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, according to a letter school district officials sent Friday to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Temporary Protected Status, better known as TPS, is a humanitarian designation that protected hundreds of thousands of Haitians from deportation following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The protections were renewed several times over the years as the Caribbean country sank deeper into the crisis. Currently, most of the nation’s capital is controlled by gangs after the president’s assassination in 2021. After TPS was canceled, the boy in San Diego received a letter summoning him to meet with ICE officers last week, school district officials said in their letter. His uncle complied and took him to the appointment “because he didn’t want to break the law,” added the letter, which NBC News obtained on Monday. A DHS spokesperson told NBC San Diego that “a man claiming to be the boy’s uncle took him to an ICE search.” ICE officials said they could not confirm that the man was related to the child and that “the alleged uncle was unable to establish legal guardianship of the minor.” As a result, they determined the child was an unaccompanied minor, the DHS spokesperson said. “Out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the child’s safety, ICE determined it was best to remove him from the home,” the spokesperson said. The Office of Refugee Resettlement told NBC News on Monday that it “does not comment on specific cases” in accordance with its own privacy policies to protect children in its custody. The third-grader is among 1,640 children considered unaccompanied minors who are in HHS care, according to agency data. Immigration authorities have detained more than 8,000 children over the past year, according to data from the Deportation Data Project. The office of Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., said the boy’s family does not know where he is being held and that he is helping them get the information they need to find him. told NBC San Diego in a statement Friday. “Furthermore, TPS protections must be restored for all from whom they have been unjustly taken away.” DHS has deemed allegations that the child was “detained” “false.” DHS also said the boy was “illegally brought to the United States” at an unspecified time by “a man believed to be his father,” who was transferred to Mexico by Customs and Border Patrol, not ICE. Jozef said: “His father was already taken from him and deported, now this administration has stripped him of the stability, family and community that every child deserves.” James Canning, a spokesman for the school district, told NBC News in a statement Monday that educators at the boy’s school have noted “a general feeling of concern for the safety and well-being of the student.” School district officials said they will send additional crisis counselors to Fay Elementary School this week “because the boy’s third-grade classmates have expressed concern and fear for their friend.” Canning said no one at DHS or HHS has yet responded to the school district’s letter asking them to reconsider how immigration enforcement policies are affecting students.
