{"id":169,"date":"2025-12-22T19:21:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/?p=169"},"modified":"2025-12-22T19:21:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:21:37","slug":"6-year-old-who-went-missing-after-ice-separation-is-reunited-with-his-dad-and-swiftly-deported-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"6-year-old who went \u2018missing\u2019 after ICE separation is reunited with his dad \u2014 and swiftly deported to China"},"content":{"rendered":"

A six-year-old boy\u2019s separation from his father after a check-in appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement one day before Thanksgiving\u00a0drew outrage from New York officials and advocates who rallied for their reunion.<\/p>\n

His son Yuanxin, who was enrolled in first grade in Astoria, Queens, was \u201cmissing\u201d for more than a week after his father\u2019s arrest, according to immigrants\u2019 rights advocates who fought for their release.<\/p>\n

The father and son were deported to China last week, according to\u00a0Homeland Security\u00a0officials.<\/p>\n

Yuanxin was among the youngest immigrants taken from ICE officials during a routine check-in appointment in New York, drawing scrutiny into an apparent tactic used by Donald Trump\u2019s administration to\u00a0pressure undocumented migrants into leaving the country by separating them from their families.<\/p>\n

His father Fei Zheng was arrested and jailed in upstate New York, according to ICE records. After more than a week of attempts to determine Yuanxin\u2019s whereabouts, lawyers and advocates confirmed he was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which takes control of unaccompanied children separated from their families by ICE.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
A Chinese father and son in New York have been deported to their home country after they were separated for nearly a month following an ICE check-in appointment\u00a0(REUTERS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Fei Zheng was eventually able to speak with his son twice over the phone while they were separated, though officials did not tell him where he was, according to Jennie Spector, an immigrants\u2019 rights advocate who maintained contact with the father while he was in custody.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a family who wanted to contribute to their community, a child who was bright and wanted to get a good education, a father who wanted the best for his child and wanted to work hard,\u201d Spector\u00a0told\u00a0The City<\/em>.\u00a0\u201cThey were denied that opportunity because of our broken and punitive immigration system, a system that is now set up to cause as much harm as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

An initial statement from Homeland Security said Fei Zheng refused to board a plane and \u201cwas acting so disruptive and aggressive that he endangered the child\u2019s wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe even attempted to escape and abandon his son,\u201d Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told\u00a0The Independent\u00a0<\/em>at the time. \u201cMr. Zheng had the right and the ability to depart the country as a family and willfully choose to not comply.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency later reported that he hit his head against a wall and said he wanted to die during his arrest at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, according to\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, citing internal records.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"ICE<\/div>
ICE has arrested at least 140 children younger than 18 years old in the New York City area since Trump’s inauguration through mid-October\u00a0(Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Zheng and his son entered the United States without legal permission earlier this year and sought asylum in the United States over fears of torture in China. They were briefly detained inside an ICE facility for families in Texas.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

After their release, they began to settle in New York, with Yuanxin starting first grade, as they continued legal proceedings to remain in the country.<\/p>\n

They had only been free for a few weeks before they were arrested again in November.<\/p>\n

Zheng\u2019s wife had learned about her husband\u2019s deportation from a lawyer in New York, according to a family friend who spoke to\u00a0The City.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cShe sounded hopeless \u2014 unsure of what to do next,\u201d the person said. \u201cBut she also sounded very clear-eyed about this. She\u2019s just worried about what life would look like in the future. What her husband would do, how to make a living, how to support her husband when he returns, how to deal with his despair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Advocates<\/div>
Advocates fear ICE arrests targeting families in the country\u2019s interior are forcing them to make an impossible choice: leave their children behind with other caregivers or none at all, which could mean moving them into foster care systems or shelters, with imminent threat of removal from the country\u00a0(Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

ICE has arrested at least 140 children younger than 18 years old in the New York City area since Trump’s inauguration through mid-October, according to federal data reviewed by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, federal immigration authorities have arrested more than 3,800 minors, including 20 infants, since Trump took office.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of children have been sent to government-run shelters since Trump took office\u00a0as the administration arrests a growing number of immigrant families to keep pace with the president\u2019s demands for mass removals.<\/p>\n

The actions recall the infamous \u201czero tolerance\u201d era of Trump\u2019s first administration that separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, a policy that was effectively blocked by a settlement in a federal court case.<\/p>\n

But his second administration has launched an \u201cunprecedented\u201d return of family separation across the United States, including targeting mixed-status families who have lived in the United States for years, according to legal advocates who spoke to\u00a0The Independent.<\/em><\/p>\n

Advocates fear immigration enforcement arrests targeting families in the country\u2019s interior are forcing them to leave their children behind with other caregivers or none at all, which could mean moving them into foster care systems or shelters, with imminent threat of removal from the country.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"New<\/div>
New York City comptroller Brad Lander and other officials rallied for the release and reunion of 6-year-old Yuanxin and his father Fei Zheng after their arrest one day before Thanksgiving\u00a0(Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

New York City\u2019s elected public advocate Jumaane Williams said the family\u2019s story is \u201ctragically emblematic\u201d of \u201cthe cruel trauma of family separation, a lack of due process for asylum seekers and others, and inhumane conditions. Enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diana Moreno, who is running for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani\u2019s vacant seat representing Queens in the state assembly, called the news of the family\u2019s removal \u201cdevastating\u201d and renewed her demands to \u201cabolish ICE once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people rallied in Queens this month to support the family, including one of Yuanxin\u2019s teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has amazing handwriting both in English and Mandarin. He loves to sing and dance to our \u2018Good Morning\u2019 song during our morning meetings. He is great at making friends and he is an important part of our classroom community,\u201d\u00a0the woman said. \u201cOur class feels his absence every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A six-year-old boy\u2019s separation from his father after a check-in appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement one day before Thanksgiving\u00a0drew outrage from New York officials…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}