XPost: talk.politics.misc, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.journalism
XPost: sac.politics, talk.politics.guns

On Friday, a local newspaper in Allentown, PA, published a story making
a salacious claim against the Trump administration. According to "family members," ICE had arrested and roughed up their 82-year-old grandfather,
a legal asylum holder, before deporting him to Guatemala.

The Morning Call claimed that Luis Leon was trying to replace his lost
green card at a local USCIS office when the Chilean national was
deported to the wrong country, where he ended up in a hospital
recovering from pneumonia. Further, the family said Leon's wife was kept
in custody, in terrible conditions, for 10 hours before being released.

Multiple international news outlets, including The Guardian, ran with
the story, giving it an air of credibility, to the point where AI
engines like Google and Grok were claiming it was confirmed. But by
Sunday, holes started to appear.

SEE: That Claim About ICE Deporting an 82-Year-Old Legal Immigrant to
Guatemala Just Got Much Weirder

For example, why did the family first claim Leon had died in custody
before changing the story to him being deported to Guatemala? Why could
the Guatemalan authorities find no record of Leon being admitted into
their country? Why was the granddaughter, who was the primary source for
the press, claiming that Leon had "no plans" to return to the United
States if he was illegally deported to a country he's not even from?

Instead of pressing those inconsistencies, though, The Morning Call
doubled down. According to their first update of the story, the
granddaughter flew to Guatemala and relayed information from Leon
himself, including a series of new or altered claims. Immigration lawyer Nicolette Glazer, who has been chronicling this story from the
beginning, was immediately skeptical given her expertise.


The Morning Call doubles down and now says

1. not only is Mr. Leon in Guatemala he got there on 1 July 2025 (10
days after his alleged arrest at the local USCIS office)

2. Mr. Leon "was taken in handcuffs from a Philadelphia immigration
office and driven two days by bus to a detention center in Minnesota".
To the best of my knowledge, there are no ICE run or GEO/Core
Civic/LaSalle etc (private for profit prisons) detention facilities but
I believe there are 3 county jails that have contracts with ICE to hold detainees. But the 2-day bus straight bit is not believable and will be
a clear violation of the transport standards.

3. Remember the story about how a relative in Chile was the one who
found Mr. Leon in a Guatemala City hospital. The new version is that "a
Chilean government contact of Leon’s brother was able to reach an
official [in Guatemala] who told him Leon had been taken to Minnesota,
then to Guatemala. It isn’t clear if that official was from ICE or
another government agency." Hmm what?!

4. Mr. Leon does not plan to come back to the US.

To say things weren't adding up would be an understatement. Key details
in the story didn't even match up with the reality of how the American immigration system works. That included the idea that Leon went to
replace his green card, something that hasn't been available to do in
person for years, and on Monday night, the house of cards finally
toppled.

As it turns out, not only did Guatemala have no record of Leon entering
the country, but the hospital he was claimed to be at had no record that
he was ever there either. An even bigger bombshell dropped, though.
Chilean authorities are now saying that a man with the name Luis Leon,
who had the same birth date as the Luis Leon from this story, died in
their country in 2019.


It appears to have been all made up by the family, which has since gone
dark and stopped responding to the press. Here's what happened since the
story first ran in The Morning Call, an Allentown, PA newspaper.

- Records in Chile show a man with his same name and date of birth died
in Chile in 2019.

- Guatemala says they have no record of him being deported to their
country.

- DHS says there is no record of him appearing at any green card
appointment in the Philly area, and they say ICE never arrested him.

- DHS says they never deported him, and their only record of him
entering the US is in 2015 from Chile via the visa waiver program, not
an asylum grant from the 1980s as the family claimed.

- His granddaughter claimed he was sick in a Guatemalan hospital with
pneumonia after ICE deported him, and that he was traumatized (after
first claiming he was dead). A doctor at the hospital she claimed he was
at says there is no record of him being there.

That meant The Morning Call had to make another update to their story. Naturally, their headline still made it seem like the controversy was
ICE's fault.


A Chilean journalist, Jose Del Pino of Canalo 13, said a doctor at the Guatemala City hospital where Nataly claimed to see her grandfather had
no record of him.

Additionally, Del Pino said, a man by the same name and date of birth
died in Santiago, Chile, in 2019. Chilean citizens are issued national identification numbers and none matches another person with that name
and birthday, he said. Del Pino provided a copy of the death certificate
to The Morning Call.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that they'd been scammed, The Morning
Call tripled down later in the article, repeating claims from "Nataly,"
the supposed granddaughter, without any critical analysis. The press has
no bottom, and as for all those left-wing podcasters and influencers who repeated this story in dramatic fashion? They are still misleading their audiences.


This entire thing was journalistic malpractice, and it will certainly
not be the last time this happens. The mainstream press has its
narrative, and they have shown they are willing to run with whatever badly-sourced garbage is given to them if they feel it can damage ICE's
mission to enforce immigration laws. A scandal like this didn't call for
an "update." It called for a full retraction and apology. We'll see if
The Morning Call, The Guardian, and others eventually get there.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/07/22/story-of-ice-deporting-an-82-year -old-legal-immigrant-gets-a-dramatic-update-press-left-in-shambles-n21919
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