9-Year-Old Writes To Joe Biden To Stop Father’s Deportation To Guatemala

Hundreds of immigrants have been deported in the initial days of President Joe Biden’s administration, despite his pledge to reform his predecessor’s harsh policies.

Fernando Ochoa is a 9-year-old boy fighting to stop the deportation of his father, Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez to Guatemala, which would force the two to be separated from each other a third time.

In his efforts to prevent that from happening, Fernando has written a letter directly to President Biden. He asked the president “from my heart that you let my dad go free,” as translated from Spanish, NBC News noted.

After taking office, Biden ordered a 100-day moratorium on deportations, but a federal judge, Drew Tipton, blocked Biden's moratorium with a temporary restraining order requested by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Fernando Ochoa and his father Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez fled Guatemala over two years ago and came to the U.S. to seek asylum. They were separated at the border under former President Donald Trump’s "zero tolerance" policy against undocumented immigrants. The father and son were reunited two months later.

Their attorney, Andani Alcantara, said in a news conference that during the first 35 days of those two months, Ubaldo couldn't even contact Fernando.

In October, they were separated a second time when Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Ubaldo after he was convicted of driving while intoxicated, Alcantara said.

Alcantara said it was only a Class B misdemeanor, but she added that ICE “has treated it as a huge crime and decided that it is enough reason not to allow Ubaldo to be with his child, who does not have another parent in the U.S.”

Ubaldo has been in the Pearsall Detention Center in Texas since his detention in October.

The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) has demanded that ICE reunite the father and son. “Unfortunately, the lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton places a pause on the moratorium on deportations, but that doesn't mean that DHS doesn't have the ability to stop ICE from deporting Ubaldo,” RAICES said.

Hundreds of immigrants have been deported in recent days, with ICE deporting 15 people to Jamaica and 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras, the Associated Press reported. Biden is expected to sign three executive orders to streamline immigration, including putting in place a working group tasked with reuniting migrant families separated by the "zero tolerance" policy.