Missing Houston teen located at immigration facility, family questions HPD
Missing Houston teen located at immigration facility
Teenager Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia, who was reported missing, was located by authorities and is now being held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, leading to a dispute over whether HPD improperly contacted ICE.
HOUSTON - Teenager Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia, who was reported missing, was located by authorities and is now being held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, leading to a dispute over whether HPD improperly contacted ICE.
The backstory:
On Friday afternoon, Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia's family held a press conference asking for help from the community in locating the 15-year-old.
FULL: Mother of missing Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia pleads for help finding him
The mother of missing 15-year-old Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia, who has autism, asks for the community's help to find her son who has been missing in Houston since Saturday.
Emmanuel was reported missing by his mother on October 4th, but claims HPD had not reached out to her with any update on where he could be.
Shortly after the press conference, HPD called FIEL Houston (the non-profit organization representing the family) to say that Emmanuel was being held by the Office of Refuge Resettlement.
FIEL Houston then shared with Fox 26 that the teen was in ICE custody. ICE sent FOX 26 the following in response:
What they're saying:
FIEL Houston says that Emmanuel is still currently being held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and it is not known when or if he could be reunited with his family.
"Shortly after yesterday, we got a call that Emmanuel in fact has been found and there’s a moment of joy followed by a moment of utter distress," Executive Director of FIEL Houston Cesar Espinosa said. "Because he has been found, but he has been found inside a detention center."
Espinosa continues to add how the family is undocumented, but is sharing their story because of their worry about Emmanuel and his condition while being detained.
"We want to make it very clear that the office of refugee resettlement, ORR, will have people believe that these are shelters," Espinosa said. "They are not. They are detention centers for unaccompanied minors."
FIEL Houston plans on speaking with Mayor Whitmire and City Council inside of Houston City Hall to ask why HPD called ICE, despite the Mayor's previous statements saying Houston police wouldn't communicate with them.
"At the moment where the HPD decides to call ICE, they get ICE involved," Espinosa said. "So even though he might not have been with them physically, his case got referred over to ICE and they are the ones who took it upon themselves to put Emmanuel in one of these shelters."
Houston: Missing teen with autism in immigration custody, ICE reports
ICE confirmed with FOX 26 that a 15-year-old who went missing in Houston for a week had been in immigration custody since Monday.
The Source: Houston Police Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Executive Director of FIEL Houston Cesar Espinosa and Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia's family.