The deportation of a 6-year-old boy who attended the California School for the Deaf in Fremont has drawn condemnation from state leaders this week, and on Monday, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell will hold a press conference to shine a light on the case.  

On Friday, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said the disabled child was expelled from the country by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents without his hearing aids. 

An immigration attorney said the student, Joseph Andrey Londono Rodriguez, and a 4-year-old sibling had accompanied their 28-year-old mother, Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez, to her routine immigration check-in Tuesday in San Francisco, where they were seized and sent to Columbia.  

Hayward resident Gutierrez was an asylum seeker from Colombia fleeing domestic violence. Her attorney, Nikolas De Bremaeker, said Gutierrez has no criminal record in any country. 

Swalwell, D-Castro Valley, who is running for governor, will host a press conference at Hayward City Hall alongside the attorney representing the Gutierrez family on Monday morning. According to Swalwell’s office, they will provide updates on the family’s case and “demand answers from federal officials.”  

Thurmond said the deportation of the child and his family was disturbing.  

 “I am deeply disturbed that a 6-year-old deaf student from our State Special Schools, who was home sick from school, was detained and deported without access to critical medical devices that support him to hear,” Thurmond said.  

“I am calling on the federal government to return our student to his school community now,” he said. “These inhumane and illegal attacks on our families must end.” 

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.