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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a Chinese man and his 6-year-old son during a booking process in New York City last week and separated them, and as of Tuesday, his father still did not know the child’s whereabouts.
Tear: On November 26, Zheng Fei and his son Yuan Xin arrived at ICE’s New York headquarters at 26 Federal Plaza for routine registration. But in a shocking move, authorities moved Zheng Fei to a detention facility in Goshen and prepared to transfer his children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a federal agency that holds unaccompanied migrant children. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Zheng “refused to board the flight and acted in such a disruptive and aggressive manner that he endangered the child’s health,” similar to situations in which police place children in protective custody when parents fail to comply with lawful orders. However, she also declared that “ICE does not break up families.”
The Border Patrol found the father and son in Durzuela, California, in April after they crossed into the United States through Mexico, a route many Chinese immigrants have taken in recent years. Zheng told agents he feared he would be tortured if returned to China, but both immigration officials and a judge rejected his account as uncredible. The pair had been detained twice since April, but authorities did not separate them until their arrest last week.
Zoom out: The Cheng family’s experience reflects the Trump administration’s broader law enforcement pattern. According to reports, authorities arrested at least 140 minors under the age of 18 in the New York area from January to mid-October, and approximately 2,600 children nationwide. This shift is particularly evident during routine inspections, where what was once an administrative formality increasingly becomes an opportunity for arrest.
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Filipino-American activist Alma Bowman arrived at the Atlanta field office on March 26, also for a scheduled appointment, but was recently released after 243 days of being detained and separated from her family. She was arrested even though she had citizenship through her father’s service in the U.S. Navy.
what does that mean: The Cheng and Bowman cases exposed the stark vulnerabilities Asian families face in the immigration system. What were once routine administrative appointments have become high-stakes encounters where families can be detained or separated without warning. For families like Bowman’s with military backgrounds, outdated citizenship laws create legal uncertainty that spans generations. At the same time, the Chengs’ separation demonstrates that law enforcement is now not limited to individuals with criminal backgrounds but also includes families actively participating in the legal immigration process.
Yuan Xin was recently a freshman at PS 166Q in Astoria. Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani took to social media to denounce the separation from his father. “He is now being held in solitary custody. ICE will not disclose the exact location,” Mamdani wrote. “This cruelty serves no one. It must end.”
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Federal records show authorities intend to deport the father and son together later this month, while Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nydia M. Velázquez work to reunite them sooner.
This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter, a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark that retells our stories and celebrates Asian American voices.
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