Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Maryland, and author of 'They Came for the Schools.'
A 5-year-old nonverbal boy whose plight in a South Texas immigration detention center drew national attention after a video call with children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel has been released with his family, their attorney said Tuesday.
Gael, who has significant developmental delays and other medical challenges, had been held for three weeks at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center — a remote, prisonlike facility that has become a flash point in the debate over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. His parents, asylum-seekers from Colombia who asked to be identified only by their first names for fear of retaliation, said their son’s physical and emotional health deteriorated at Dilley. He struggled to eat, often gagging on food, and went more than a week without a bowel movement, leaving his stomach visibly swollen and causing him pain, they said. As his condition worsened, Gael grew increasingly distressed and began hitting himself, according to the family’s lawyer, Elora Mukherjee. The terms of the family’s release weren’t immediately clear, Mukherjee said. She said they plan to return to their home in El Paso and most likely will be required to attend regular check-ins with ICE as their case moves forward. The decision to release them came about a week after Mukherjee requested their release on medical grounds and days after NBC News detailed the family’s experience. The family, who had no criminal history in the U.S., were arrested March 3 in El Paso at an immigration check-in, Mukherjee said. “This family should never have been arrested and detained,” she said. “Law-abiding people who are living their lives and complying with all their immigration requirements must not be abruptly seized out of their communities and taken to detention centers.” The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Gael’s case came into public view this month when Rachel Accurso — the educator known to millions of young children and parents as Ms. Rachel — spoke with him over Zoom. During the call, arranged by an N+ Univision journalist, Accurso slipped into character, wearing her signature pink headband and trying to engage him — singing “Wheels on the Bus,” holding up a toy and speaking gently about his love of trains. But Gael appeared overwhelmed and in distress as his mother described his worsening condition. Afterward, Accurso posted about the encounter on Instagram, writing: “This little guy needs us.” “Imagine if your child hadn’t pooped in nine days,” she later told NBC News. “This is not normal. This is an important medical situation.” Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School and director of its Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, learned of Gael’s case through Accurso’s post and took on the family’s representation. In filings to immigration officials last week, she warned that Gael’s condition was deteriorating in custody and that he was not getting the specialized care he relied on at home. Before he was detained, Gael had been undergoing evaluations for autism and receiving therapy, where the family had been living while it pursued asylum, Mukherjee said. In an interview last week, his parents, Leonardo and Nelsy, described Gael’s struggles over a video call from Dilley as the boy wandered around a bare meeting room. “No child should be here, regardless of their condition,” Leonardo said in Spanish. “Even for us as adults, it’s hard.” Dilley faces mounting scrutiny from immigration lawyers and advocates, who say children have struggled emotionally and physically in an environment where lights remain on around the clock and guards patrol. Families have described contaminated food, lax education and inadequate medical care. DHS has disputed those accounts, saying families are provided appropriate care in a facility designed for their needs. Accurso has emerged as a prominent voice in that debate. After having spoken with Gael and another boy who pleaded for help getting out of Dilley so he could attend a spelling bee, Accurso told NBC News she is working with lawyers and advocates “to close Dilley and make sure that kids and their parents are back in their communities where they belong.” For Gael and his parents, the focus now shifts to recovering from their ordeal, Mukherjee said. They plan to return to the Texas community where they’d been living, she said, where Gael can resume medical care and therapy while the family continues to pursue asylum. “Nelson and Leonardo are so eager to take Gael to their pediatrician so that he can get the medical care that he urgently needs,” Mukherjee said. “That’s their top priority.”
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