Luis Leon, 82, lost his wallet which contained his green card issued in 1987 after receiving asylum from Chile post-torture. He went with his wife to an immigration office in Philadelphia for a replacement. From there, he was disappeared.
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.
Chile’s Pinochet was famous for disappearing its people. I think he has a modern day rival.
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