a day ago
ICE Deported Him. His Father Heard Nothing for Months. Then, a Call.
The last time that Wilmer Gutièrrez had heard from his son, he was in an immigration detention center in Texas, not far from the border with Mexico. The phone call was brief and urgent.
'Pay attention,' his son, Merwil Gutièrrez, said from the facility, his second stop after being arrested in front of his Bronx apartment building. 'They are going to take us out again.'
Then, he was gone. It was the middle of March. For more than four months, his father would know little about his son's fate.
Mr. Gutièrrez, who had come to New York from Venezuela with his father two years ago seeking asylum, had become one of an increasing number of immigrants taken into custody by federal authorities, their whereabouts unknown or unclear to their families.
It turned out that he had been sent to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where he remained for months. Then in July, his relatives received another phone call. This time, they learned that Mr. Gutièrrez, who is 20, was bound for Venezuela, one of more than 200 men who were returned to their homeland in exchange for the release of 10 Americans from Venezuelan custody.
On July 19, at the airport in Caracas, glass doors slid open, and one by one, the formerly incarcerated Venezuelans, many wearing white polo shirts and jeans, walked through. Mr. Gutièrrez emerged, arms open, and his sister leaped toward him.
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