In a recent incident underscoring ongoing debates about immigration policies, a father and his son were detained by immigration authorities during a routine check-in in Manhattan.
Community advocate Jennie Spector voiced concerns, stating: “We do not know where his six-year-old son is, and he has not been told where his six-year-old son is.”
Key Details
- Fei Zheng, seeking asylum from China, was reportedly sent to Orange County Correction Facility in Goshen, New York, separating him from his young son.
- This marks the third occasion since arriving in April that Zheng and his son have been in ICE detention.
- The pair had recently settled in Queens, where his son started attending school in Astoria.
- The Department of Homeland Security’s spokesperson refuted claims of family separation: “ICE does not separate families.”
On November 26, Fei Zheng and his son, Yuanxin, were reportedly accompanied by advocates to their check-in at 26 Federal Plaza, where they were subsequently divided, and Zheng relocated to a facility 65 miles away.
Spector reports speaking with Zheng after the separation.
“He said to me, ‘I did what they said I should do. I came in for this check-in.’ And yet they arrested him and his son,” according to Spector.
The Department of Homeland Security contradicted the separation claim, asserting, “ICE does not separate families… Mr. Zheng had the right and the ability to depart the country as a family and willfully chose to not comply.”
Spector countered, “For them to say they don’t separate families is just an outright lie because we know that they do and they did in this situation. And we know that they’ve done it with many other families.”
Zheng and his son had experienced detainment twice before this event since crossing the border last spring. They had been living in Queens following a parole in late October. Although ICE claims that unaccompanied minors are not typically detained, critics argue the opposite.
Spector articulated, “This is the case for so many of these families and individuals who are going in and following immigration law as mandated, yet they’re being arrested and detained and being disappeared. Right now, his son is disappeared.”
Additional voices like Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani criticized the actions online, highlighting the plight of young Yuanxin, who had just started first grade: “Six-year-old Yuanxin had just enrolled in the first grade at an elementary school in Astoria. Now he’s in custody, alone. ICE won’t say where. This cruelty serves no one. It must end.”
Spector further noted, “I’m sure he was really enjoying being in school and that’s where he should be. That’s where a six-year-old should be — with other children and learning and being with their parents and not separated and in detention.”
Efforts by advocates are underway to secure legal and political intervention for Zheng’s release from detainment and to reunite him with his son.
