Joseph Rodriguez is six years old and deaf. He attended the California School for the Deaf in Fremont and had lived for four years with his mother and his four year old brother in Hayward, a city in the Bay Area. Last week his mother, Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez, had been scheduled for a routine check in at the ICE office in California. Joseph was sick, she could not leave him alone - so she took him with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were immediately detained. All three of them. And shortly afterward deported to Colombia, where his mother had fled from - she is an asylum seeker who escaped domestic violence. What stands out in this sequence: no hearing, no contact with her attorneys, no due process. Joseph\u2019s hearing aids were left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A relative tried to bring them to the boy while he was still in custody. ICE refused to accept them. The devices did not get through. Joseph was transferred from facility to facility - places not built for children, certainly not for children with significant special needs. His attorney said: \u201cThis is inhumane, illegal and unconstitutional.\u201d Hearing aids are not glasses that can be quickly replaced. They are calibrated to an individual\u2019s specific hearing loss, often cost several thousand dollars and are nearly impossible to replace in a situation like this. What that means for a six year old boy who is suddenly in another country, surrounded by people whose language he does not know, without the devices that allow him to hear - one has to truly imagine that for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n