An 8-year-old Haitian boy who walked into a routine immigration appointment in San Diego with the uncle raising him is now in federal custody alone. His relatives say they have not been told where he is being kept.

The boy is a third grader at Fay Elementary School in the City Heights neighborhood. He had been staying with his uncle and cousins since his father was deported in March 2025. Earlier this year he lost the Temporary Protected Status that had shielded him from removal.

A volunteer who observes immigration proceedings filmed the moment last week as federal officers led the child away after his check-in at the Edward J. Schwartz federal building downtown. The boy had received a letter ordering him to meet with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. School district officials said his uncle brought him because he "did not want to break the law."

What DHS says

The Department of Homeland Security said the man who came with the boy could not "establish legal guardianship of the minor." Officers then classified the child as unaccompanied under a 2008 federal anti-trafficking law that sets rules for immigrant children who arrive without a parent.

"Out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the child's safety, ICE determined it was best to remove the child from the household," a DHS spokesperson said. The boy was handed to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the federal office that usually takes in children deemed unaccompanied.

The department rejected claims that the child had been "placed in detention." It said he was "illegally brought into the United States by a man who alleged to be his father." It added that Customs and Border Protection rather than ICE had sent that man to Mexico. The agency has not accused the uncle of abuse or any other wrongdoing.

Family and school push back

Guerline Jozef leads the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy group for immigrants. She said the uncle followed every requirement yet the child was still taken into custody before being sent on to the resettlement office. Jozef said the father was never given a chance to set up legal guardianship before he was removed. She called the case an excuse to take the boy and possibly place him in deportation proceedings.

Cody Petterson, a trustee on the San Diego Unified School District board, said the uncle was listed in school records as an authorized caregiver. He said officials believe the boy may be in Los Angeles. Wherever he is, Petterson said, it is "certainly not with family or with a designated caregiver." He described the case as "legalized lawlessness."

The district along with other local leaders sent a three-page letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It demands the boy be returned to his uncle so he can stay with the "schools, teachers, classmates and support systems" he knows.

Rep. Juan Vargas, whose office is handling the family's casework, called the targeting of a child "despicable" as well as "inhumane." He also urged that protected status be restored for everyone who lost it.

Classmates shaken

The district has sent crisis counselors to Fay Elementary. Officials said the boy's third-grade classmates have voiced "concern and fear for their friend."

A wider pattern

Over the summer the Supreme Court sided with the administration in ending Haitians' Temporary Protected Status. The program had protected thousands of people from deportation after the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti. It was extended for years as the country weathered crisis after crisis including the 2021 assassination of its president.

Federal data show more than 1,600 children nationwide are held as unaccompanied minors in the care of Health and Human Services. More than 8,000 children have been taken into government custody in the last 12 months according to the Deportation Data Project.

It remains unclear whether the boy will be removed from the country. His family says it is working to sort out the custody question.