A six-year-old boy who was separated from his father following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in in New York has been deported to China, according to Homeland Security officials. The boy, identified as Yuanxin, was enrolled in first grade in Astoria, Queens, before his father Fei Zheng was arrested on the day before Thanksgiving.
For more than a week, the child's whereabouts were unknown to advocates and lawyers, who later confirmed he was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Zheng was held in a jail in upstate New York and was able to speak to his son twice by phone, but officials did not disclose the boy's location, said Jennie Spector, an immigrants' rights advocate.
Homeland Security initially stated that Zheng refused to board a deportation flight, acting "disruptive and aggressive" and endangering his son. The agency later reported that he hit his head against a wall and expressed a desire to die during his arrest at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, according to internal records cited by The New York Times.
Zheng and his son had entered the United States without legal permission earlier this year and sought asylum, citing fear of torture in China. They were briefly detained in an ICE facility in Texas before being released and settling in New York. They were arrested again in November, just weeks after their release.
The boy's mother learned of the deportation from a lawyer, according to a family friend. "She sounded hopeless – unsure of what to do next," the friend said. Federal data shows that ICE has arrested at least 140 children under 18 in the New York City area since President Trump took office, and more than 3,800 minors nationwide, including 20 infants.
Advocates have drawn parallels to the "zero tolerance" policy of Mr Trump's first administration, which resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. They warn that the current administration is escalating family separations, targeting mixed-status families who have lived in the U.S. for years.
