‘Nightmare’: family in shock after Ice moves LA teen out of state without their knowledge

The family of 18-year-old Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz was shocked when they found out that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had discreetly moved him out of California, according to California congresswoman Luz Rivas, who spoke with his relatives and reviewed federal detention records.

Guerrero-Cruz, who was first detained in Van Nuys neighborhood while walking his dog, was transferred late Monday from the Adelanto detention facility in San Bernardino county to a remote holding site in Arizona without any notification given to his family.

The next day, Ice prepared to send him to Louisiana, a key hub for deportation flights. At the last moment, however, Guerrero-Cruz was removed from the plane and returned to Adelanto, where he remains in custody, according to Rivas’s office.

“The nightmare for him, his family, and thousands in similar situations is not over yet,” Rivas said in a statement. “I will not accept the current reality that ICE shuffles and transfers detainees without notifying their family to inflict psychological pain for all of those involved.

“Benjamin and his family deserve answers behind Ice’s inconsistent and chaotic decision-making process, including why Benjamin was initially transferred to Arizona, why he was slated to be transferred to Louisiana afterward, and why his family wasn’t notified of his whereabouts by Ice throughout this process,” the statement continued.

Rivas introduced legislation on Tuesday that would require Ice to contact a detainee’s immediate family within 24 hours of a transfer. Current rules only mandate notification in the event of a detainee’s death.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Guerrero-Cruz faces deportation to Chile after overstaying his visa, which obliged him to leave the US by 15 March 2023.

The teen was initially arrested on 8 August and held in downtown LA for a week. One of his former teachers, Liz Becerra, visited Guerrero-Cruz at an Ice processing center in Adelanto, an hour and a half north of LA.

She said that Guerrero-Cruz spoke about being surrounded by masked men while walking his dog, handed over to federal agents, and then brought to the metropolitan detention center in downtown LA. He was not allowed to shower or brush his teeth for a week, Becerra said.

Once he was moved to Adelanto, he said he was being kept in a small cell with about two dozen other men with little access to food and water.

This pattern of detainees being shifted between multiple sites reflects a broader practice under what the Trump administration is touting as the largest deportation initiative in US history.

An analysis of Ice data by the Guardian found that in June this year, average daily arrests were up 268% compared with June 2024. It also found that, despite Trump’s claims that his administration is seeking out the “worst of the worst”, the majority of people being arrested by Ice now have no criminal convictions.

As a result, detention facilities have been increasingly overcrowded, and the US system was over capacity by more than 13,500 people as of July.