UPDATE: ICE refutes reports that it deported Allentown man to Guatemala

The Department of Homeland Security says the story is a hoax.

Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) is pushing back against claims that Luis Leon, an 82-year-old Allentown man, was arrested in Philadelphia and deported to Guatemala in June while trying to replace a lost green card by calling the story a “hoax.”

“ICE has not deported Luis Leon—a Chilean national—to Guatemala, as his family members have said. ICE’s only record of this individual entering the U.S. is in 2015 from Chile under the visa waiver program,” the agency said in a statement.

The Allentown Morning Call reported that Leon was supposedly arrested and deported by ICE after family members raised the alarm about Leon’s unknown whereabouts. 

The publication reported that  his granddaughter Nataly, who did not provide her last name in order to protect her privacy, said Leon’s family was notified that he died in custody, but then surfaced in a Guatemalan hospital suffering from pneumonia. 

ICE initially did not provide a comment about the discrepancies in the report. 

“ Irrespective of my ability to talk to the family, this is just another example of the way that ICE is doing business, continuing to create a culture and climate of fear in the city of Allentown that disconnects people from the civic life,” Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk told The Keystone after the story broke.

The Associated Press now reports that the Guatemalan government denied that ICE deported Leon to the country and that the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, an organization that coordinates with ICE on all deportations, did not have any record of Leon entering the country. 

A Chilean news agency, Canalo 13, spoke to a doctor at the hospital where Leon’s family claimed he was staying and had no records of Leon.  

“As long as ICE continues to operate in the shadows, people will continue to believe stories like this,” Tuerk said in an interview on Tuesday.  “There’s an opportunity for ICE to provide clarity in Allentown in a way that makes people feel safe and participate in civic life.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect ICE’s statement refuting that it deported Luis Leon to Guatemala, and to include other discrepancies in the initial reporting on the status of his case.