82-Year-Old Torture Survivor Secretly Deported Without Records or Warning

By Cliff Potts, Editor-in-Chief, WPS News
Dateline: July 21, 2025 – Manila, Philippines
Filed from a T-Mobile Cell Phone.

The U.S. immigration system, already under scrutiny for its historical abuses, has once again drawn fire—this time for what can only be described as the secret deportation of an 82-year-old legal resident and torture survivor. Luis Leon, a lawful U.S. resident for nearly four decades, was quietly deported to Guatemala last month after seeking help to replace a lost green card. Instead of receiving assistance, he was detained without notice, misled by officials, and ultimately vanished into a bureaucratic black hole that reeks of authoritarian abuse.

Leon, who fled Chile’s Pinochet regime in the 1980s after surviving torture, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 20, 2025, in Philadelphia. He had simply walked into an immigration office for a routine replacement of his permanent resident card. What followed was a Kafkaesque nightmare. His wife was detained for ten hours. His family was given no information about his whereabouts for days. Then came the cruelest twist—a person impersonating an attorney phoned Leon’s family and claimed he had died (Nass, 2025).

Only after desperate efforts by relatives in Chile did the family locate him—alive, barely—hospitalized in Guatemala with pneumonia. According to reports, Leon suffers from chronic diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure (Sherman & Orellana, 2025). He was unceremoniously dumped into a country he has no ties to and that does not even acknowledge his presence in deportation logs (Sherman & Orellana, 2025).

No public deportation records exist. No formal announcement was made. The Department of Homeland Security has remained largely silent, and the Department of Justice has reportedly launched an internal inquiry. ICE has not denied the deportation, but has offered no explanation for why a man with legal status and no criminal background would be secretly removed from the country. The Guatemalan government, for its part, stated they typically only receive deportees from Central America and are puzzled by Leon’s arrival (AP, 2025).

The implications are chilling. This is not a clerical error—it is a human rights violation. “If they can disappear an elderly, law-abiding U.S. resident with a legal green card,” says civil liberties attorney Mariel Lujan, “they can disappear anyone.” The machinery built during the Trump administration—one defined by cruelty, deception, and contempt for due process—remains fully operational. And under Biden, it has not been dismantled.

“This is not an isolated case,” warns Lujan. “This is fascism in administrative form—faceless, unaccountable, and entirely indifferent to life or law.”

For now, Luis Leon lies in a Guatemalan hospital. ICE continues to stonewall. And Americans, once again, must confront the harrowing question: What kind of nation detains its elders, lies to their families, and casts them into exile without due process or remorse?

References
AP. (2025, July 20). Guatemala denies that Chilean green-card holder was deported from the United States. The Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/1599f3cfe4e2b99e50ecd9c77b6c3832
Nass, D. (2025, July 20). ICE secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost green card. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/20/ice-secretly-deported-grandfather
Sherman, C., & Orellana, M. (2025, July 20). ICE Secretly Deported Grandpa, 82, Over Lost Green Card. The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-secretly-deported-82-year-old-pennsylvania-grandpa-after-he-lost-his-green-card

Link: https://endfascism.xyz

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