Allentown grandfather's family was told he died in ICE custody. Then they learned he's alive in a hospital in Guatemala [View all]

https://www.mcall.com/2025/07/18/luis-leon-allentown-grandfather-ice-guatemala/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/RwF6E

Relatives of 82-year-old Allentown resident Luis Leon are headed to a Guatemalan hospital Saturday in hopes of reuniting with the man they say disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system a month ago — and who, for a time, they thought was dead.

The last time anyone in the family saw Leon was June 20, when he went with his wife to a Philadelphia immigration office to have his lost green card replaced.

There, the family says, he was handcuffed by two officers, who led him away without explanation. His wife, who speaks little English, was left behind and kept in the building for 10 hours until she was released to her granddaughter, the family says.

Repeated inquiries to immigration officials, prisons, hospitals and even a morgue yielded no information. Leon’s name was not in ICE’s online database of detainees.

Finally, on Friday, a relative from Leon’s native Chile was told he had been taken first to a detention center in Minnesota and then to Guatemala. The hospital, citing privacy rules, would not verify his presence there when contacted by The Morning Call.

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