Rep. Swalwell denounces deportation case involving boy separated from his hearing aid
A Bay Area mother and her two children were deported after a routine immigration check‑in, leaving her young son separated from his hearing aids
A young boy whose plea to leave immigration detention so he could attend a spelling bee garnered national attention has been released in time for the competition, according to his family’s attorney.
Deiver Henao Jimenez, 9, and his parents were detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas, since early March and were previously living in New Mexico, attorney Corey Sullivan Martin told USA TODAY.
Deiver’s situation was highlighted by the popular children’s content creator Rachel Accurso, who goes by Ms. Rachel. Earlier this month, Ms. Rachel shared clips from a video call with Deiver while he was in detention.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Deiver said during the call. “Nothing is good here.”
“I want to leave and go to the spelling bee,” he said, adding that he wanted to return to school “to be happy” and that he missed his friends. He also worried his teachers missed him while he was gone, Martin said.
Deiver, a fourth-grader, qualified for the statewide Spanish-language spelling bee in New Mexico after winning his school bee and placing at his district bee, Martin said. He got the news that he qualified for the state bee while in detention.
Deiver and his parents were released on March 23, in time to make it back to New Mexico for the spelling bee later this spring, and to meet the registration deadline this week, attorney Martin said. They were released on humanitarian parole pending a future court date after Martin filed legal requests on their behalf, she said.
ICE did not immediately respond to requests for additional information from USA TODAY.
Deiver and his parents, originally from Colombia, were detained during a routine immigration check-in while their asylum case proceeded through immigration court, despite complying with the procedures outlined for them in the case, Martin said. Immigrants coming to the United States can apply for asylum, a form of legal protection granted to those fleeing danger in their home countries.
Martin said Deiver’s father was working in construction and had received work authorization while waiting for the immigration case to proceed. They were also complying with monitoring requirements and routine check-ins, so the timing of their detention was unclear.
The detention center in the small town of Dilley, also called the South Texas Family Residential Center, has come under scrutiny for the conditions families are kept in, and immigrants released from the center told USA TODAY that sick children weren’t given adequate care.
Martin said Deiver and other children’s sleep was impacted while in detention because lights are kept on 24/7, including in the rooms where they sleep. Dilley is “miserable,” she said.
The Department of Homeland Security previously told USA TODAY that the facility was retrofitted to house families and denied claims of poor conditions.
Also held at Dilley was 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was detained by immigration agents alongside his father in Minneapolis. The boy’s detention went viral after a photo showing him wearing a blue hat with a scared look on his face spread online.
Deiver and his family are “grateful” to be back in their community, which gave them so much support while they were detained, Martin said. The fourth grader is excited to get back to his friends and teachers at school, Martin said. But they are also nervous and have been impacted by their time at Dilley, she said.
“He’s such an optimistic kid,” Martin said. “He has such rose-colored glasses and I just feel like we might’ve crushed that a little, and it’s distressing to know how unnecessarily we’re crushing little kids’ spirits.”
(This story was updated to add new information.)
Contributing: Rick Jervis and Lauren Villagran