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A worker at a Cuban restaurant in Washington state was arrested by federal immigration agents while taking his two-year-old son to daycare.
The incident occurred in the city of Shoreline on the morning of Sunday, January 25. According to King 5, ICE agents blocked several lanes of Aurora Avenue North and detained Iván Guzmán while his son remained strapped in his car seat in the back of the vehicle. Witnesses reported that the child was left in the car for an extended period, surrounded by armed agents.
Verónica Castañeda, owner of the restaurant El Cubano To Go, told the local media that she received a desperate call from Guzmán asking for help. “I was in shock. I thought it was a joke,” she said. When she arrived at the location, she found the child crying, covering himself with a blanket. “The baby was scared.”
According to The Seattle Times, the child was left alone in the car for about 40 minutes. Inside the vehicle were toys, apple slices, a juice box, and a bag of freshly purchased tamales for lunch. “It was the typical scene of a father taking his child to daycare,” recounted local activist Chris Megargee, who helped remove the car from the location after the arrest.
The detention prompted a swift community reaction. Neighbors and activists gathered in the area, with some recording the operation and others protesting what they deemed as an excessive action near a small child. Tensions escalated as officers waited for someone to come forward and take responsibility for the minor.
Days later, Guzmán was able to contact his boss to inform her that he had been deported to Mexico, his home country, as confirmed by Castañeda to King 5. ICE has not provided public details regarding the reasons for the arrest.
The case has generated a wave of solidarity. A GoFundMe was created to raise funds for legal assistance, childcare, and food.
The campaign alleges that Guzmán was "illegally detained by ICE in front of his son" and transferred without cause to the Tacoma detention center. "We need a lawyer who can contact him and build a case against his illegal kidnapping," the fundraiser states.
Guzmán worked as the head chef at El Cubano To Go, a small Cuban restaurant located on Aurora Avenue North in Shoreline, founded in 2021 by the Cuban Geo Rodríguez and his wife.
"Iván was my right hand, a hardworking man, devoted to his family," said Castañeda. "When people talk about ‘criminals,’ they don’t think of someone who was just taking his son to daycare before going to work."
The boy is now with his mother, whose identity was not revealed for privacy reasons. However, the image of that little one, alone in the back seat while his father was being arrested, continues to resonate among thousands of migrant families, including many Cubans, who live with the fear that a daily routine might end in an irreversible separation.
This case occurs just days after another incident that sparked national outrage, when on January 20, agents from ICE arrested a five-year-old boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, in Minnesota during an operation aimed at capturing his father.
The image of the minor in front of his house after leaving school went viral and generated strong criticism, which Vice President J. D. Vance dismissed while publicly defending the agents and justifying the immigration action.
For civil rights advocates, both cases reflect a troubling trend: immigration operations that place children at the heart of trauma, even during everyday moments like going to school or daycare.
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