"Terrified": ICE Agents Detained 6-Year-Old Boy with Cancer, Leaving Him Traumatized

As Congress approved some $45 billion to expand ICE's immigration detention capacity, including the jailing of families and children, we look at the case of one family. In May, plainclothes ICE agents detained a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, along with his 9-year-old sister and their mother, as they left their immigration court hearing in Los Angeles. In detention, the boy missed a key doctor's appointment, and the family said his sister cried every night. As pressure grew over their conditions, the family was released on July 2. "The little boy doesn't want to leave his home. He's terrified. He sobs, cries, and screams when his mother takes him out of the house," says attorney Elora Mukherjee, who represents the boy and his family and is director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. She says the young children are traumatized after their month in ICE detention.