Rep. Rashida Tlaib: ICE Handcuffed and Detained 8-Year-Old and Now He’s Missing

Here's the station's post. It says that school district leaders were unsure where he was being held, not that he'd gone missing. Well, missing to them, but not to ICE. I'm fairly sure they know exactly where he is.

ICE took an 8-year-old Haitian boy into custody after calling him in for a check-in Wednesday, sparking outrage among San Diego Unified School District leaders, who said Friday they were unsure where the child was being held. https://t.co/zJFQZyHEYP

— NBC 7 San Diego (@nbcsandiego) November 7, 2026

Shelby Bremer reported last week:

The boy is a third grader at Fay Elementary School in City Heights and lost Temporary Protected Status earlier this year, according to district officials, who said he was staying with his uncle after his father was deported last year.

Video recorded by a volunteer observer at the federal building in downtown San Diego shows three armed federal agents walking the boy away from ICE’s field office and into an elevator.

SDUSD’s superintendent and school board members were among nearly a dozen community leaders who signed a letter Friday to DHS about the case, calling the boy’s detention “particularly troubling,” and expressing concern more broadly on the Trump administration's elimination of TPS and its impact on students.

…

The district said the child received a letter to meet with an ICE agent and his uncle took him “because he did not want to break the law.” The agent then took the child into custody, “leaving the uncle distraught, and this 8-year-old without the support of their family, community and their school," according to the district's letter.

"We are living under a cloud of terror,” said [Guerline] Jozef." Jozef is executive director of the nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance.

I read through the entire story so you don't have to, and while it says the boy was taken into custody, nowhere in the piece does it mention that he or anyone else was handcuffed, as Tlaib claims. I'm not sure where she got that detail.

It turns out I've been following this story, as the incident happened a week ago. ABC News picked up the story and reported on it Monday for its national audience:

An 8-year-old Haitian boy who lost Temporary Protected Status earlier this year was taken into federal custody after an immigration check-in, according to local advocates and school officials. https://t.co/DZlOHBxOP2

— ABC News (@ABC) November 9, 2026

Here's ICE's side of the story. It's lengthy, but important.

Allegations that ICE took a third grader into custody to be placed in detention are FALSE, and any suggestion otherwise is a depraved attempt to smear our ICE law enforcement officers and undermine the work of President Trump and Secretary Mullin to protect children. On November 5, a man claiming to be the child’s uncle took him to an ICE check in. Because the alleged uncle could not establish legal guardianship in accordance with Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) requirements, the minor was determined to be an unaccompanied alien child (UAC). To ensure the child’s safety, ICE placed him in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The child was initially illegally brought into the United States with a man who alleged to be his father, who was previously removed to Mexico by CBP and has never been in ICE custody. Since you want to talk about immigrant children, let’s talk about the 450,000 unaccompanied children the Biden Administration lost or placed with unvetted sponsors. How much oxygen did you devote to these children before Biden was booted from office? Secretary Mullin is leading efforts to rescue these children and stop their exploitation. Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and DHS take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with law enforcement to reunite children with their families.

— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) November 10, 2026

The post continues:

… 5, a man claiming to be the child’s uncle took him to an ICE check in. Because the alleged uncle could not establish legal guardianship in accordance with Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) requirements, the minor was determined to be an unaccompanied alien child (UAC). To ensure the child’s safety, ICE placed him in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The child was initially illegally brought into the United States with a man who alleged to be his father, who was previously removed to Mexico by CBP and has never been in ICE custody.

Since you want to talk about immigrant children, let’s talk about the 450,000 unaccompanied children the Biden Administration lost or placed with unvetted sponsors. How much oxygen did you devote to these children before Biden was booted from office?

Secretary Mullin is leading efforts to rescue these children and stop their exploitation. Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and DHS take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with law enforcement to reunite children with their families.

I confirmed with DHS that the alleged uncle who brought the kid to an ICE check-in COULD NOT establish legal guardianship. ICE PROTECTED the child. How many stories did you guys do on the 450k unaccompanied alien children that Biden lost track of or put with unvetted sponsors??

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 10, 2026

@ABC @LindaLeeKing Seems important that the man with the boy could not establish legal guardianship, unless @ABC is fine with child trafficking.

— Reyes (@Ibrahim_Reyes_) November 10, 2026

@ABC You're TRYING to create outrage. You're TRYING to foment violence. You're ENCOURAGING and ENABLING human trafficking. The legacy press is guilty of treason.

— Mr. Binturong (@BrenBearcat1) November 10, 2026

@ABC ABC would rather see the child be sent off with a trafficker than keep him safe.

— 🇺🇸 Red Dot in a Blue State 🇺🇸 (@FedUpFromMA) November 10, 2026

@ABC Translation: "8 year old migrant child now with adults in law enforcement after the boys piece of trash parents abandoned him in another country"

— Mr. E (@Mr_E_Studio) November 9, 2026

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Senator who is lying to you ! Here's what actually happened. His father was deported in March 2025 and left him here. For the next year and a half he lived with an uncle who never had legal custody. A school emergency-contact form is not guardianship. Under federal law, a child here with no parent and no legal guardian is an unaccompanied minor. Period. So he went to ORR. ORR is HHS, not ICE, and it places kids in licensed shelters with schooling, medical care and case managers. Not a cell. And the uncle isn't shut out. He can apply to sponsor the boy today. He'll be vetted first, the way every adult should be before the government hands over a child. We learned that the hard way when kids were released to people nobody checked. One school board trustee admits he doesn't know who has legal custody, then says there's "no question" where the child belongs. A councilman blames the end of TPS, but the father was deported while TPS was still in place. @SecMullinDHS @DHSgov @ICEgov @HHSResponse @CoryBooker

— Scott Mechkowski (@ScottMechkowski) November 10, 2026

The post continues:

… guardianship. Under federal law, a child here with no parent and no legal guardian is an unaccompanied minor. Period.

So he went to ORR. ORR is HHS, not ICE, and it places kids in licensed shelters with schooling, medical care and case managers. Not a cell.

And the uncle isn't shut out. He can apply to sponsor the boy today. He'll be vetted first, the way every adult should be before the government hands over a child. We learned that the hard way when kids were released to people nobody checked.

One school board trustee admits he doesn't know who has legal custody, then says there's "no question" where the child belongs. A councilman blames the end of TPS, but the father was deported while TPS was still in place.

So, the kid was never handcuffed, and he's not missing. He's in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, living in a licensed center with schooling, medical care, and case managers. Under federal law — which, when I last checked, was written by members of Congress — a child with no parent and no legal guardian is considered unaccompanied.

@ABC "According to local advocates" doesn't fill me with confidence that this story is accurate...

— Its A Dry Heat (@Its_a_dryheat) November 10, 2026

@ABC If you had just stuck to “school officials” you might have had a slightly better shot at credibility. “Local advocates” showed your hand

— Ramon (@abad4nr) November 10, 2026

It's funny how the media, both local and national, always manages to get statements from "local advocates" and reprint them as fact.

Oh, and as to Tlaib's claim that the boy is "one of the over 20,000 people who have been disappeared by ICE." That's obviously B.S. too.

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