Chinese Father Held by ICE After Check-In; Young Son’s Whereabouts Unknown
This story is heart-wrenching, so trigger warning.
After a father and son went to their regular ICE check-in inside 26 Federal Plaza in New York last Wednesday, they were both separated. The 6-year-old child’s whereabouts are now unknown, and ICE agents are claiming that the father was shipped to a detention facility in Goshen, N.Y. The father and son are both from China.
Spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, recognized in a statement that the father and son had been separated, but then proceeded to add that “ICE does not separate families.”
McLaughlin then added that Fei (the father) had:
“Refused to board the plane and was acting so disruptive and aggressive that he endangered the child’s wellbeing. He even attempted to escape and abandon his son.”
Yeah, I mean, I would be “disruptive” too if rogue ICE agents took my son and didn’t tell me where they took him.
The problem here isn’t just this 6-year-old child; it’s the rising number of children who are getting arrested and detained by ICE. According to data released by the Deportation Data Project through a FOIA request, 150 children under 18 have been arrested since January, with a considerable rise marked in the beginning of May.
Where are these children taken? What happens to them?
This isn’t the first time that Fei and his son Yuanxin have been held in an ICE detention center, either; it’s actually their third time. Once when they attempted to cross the border seeking asylum in April this year, they were released on parole in early summer. The second arrest happened again at an August ICE check-in. In September, an immigration court found that they had been detained, and a judge administratively closed their asylum case.
Under other administrations, without a rogue, overfunded ICE, this would have been seen as a positive step forward, which indicates that DHS isn’t actively seeking their deportation.
About a month later, on Oct 24, the father-and-son duo were released on a year-long parole, with a required check-in early December. They settled into a life in New York City, living at a family shelter in Queens, and Yuanxin began first grade.
It is unclear what they have thoroughly gone through, and this article only scratches the surface of their pain and suffering. What I can tell you confidently is that no parent will electively go through this much struggle and live in a family shelter in a country they are strangers to unless circumstances force them to do so.
In the days following the separation, advocates and community organizers have been scrambling to locate the child, contacting shelters, legal service providers, and child welfare agencies. Thus far, no agency has confirmed taking custody of a 6-year-old matching his description. Attorneys say this lack of clarity is deeply alarming, especially given the child’s age, his limited English, and the trauma he has already endured while navigating the asylum system. Each hour without answers only intensifies fears about his safety and well-being.
This case is more than a bureaucratic failure; it is a moral crisis that lays bare how fragile the protections for immigrant families truly are. When a 6-year-old child can vanish within a federal system without immediate accountability, it highlights a profoundly broken structure that prioritizes enforcement over humanity.
Until complete answers are given and meaningful reform is pursued, families like Fei and Yuanxin will continue to bear the weight of a system that was never built to protect them.
Be Fei and Yanxin’s voice, we are all they have.
Cruelty here isn’t a glitch, it’s the system. ICE doesn’t malfunction when it rips families apart; it performs exactly as designed, turning human suffering into bureaucratic routine.
The law becomes paperwork, the parent becomes a “case file,” and the children become collateral damage.
That’s how institutionalized violence hides in plain sight: cruelty normalized as policy, deterrence masquerading as enforcement.
And I keep wondering how the people who carry out these jobs justify it…how they live with the profoundly unethical sickness of breaking families for a paycheck. The truth is, they must be so twisted in the head to normalize this kind of heinous work. Russian secret police do this, the gestapo did this…
Why does our country produce this type of individual?
—Johan
Thank you for highlighting their story. How awful for both of them. Being separated from a parent is cruel and unnecessary. This regime needs to be removed and prosecuted by The Hague, among other things.