HOUSON – A Houston mother is urgently seeking to be reunited with her 15-year-old son, Emmanuel Gonzalez Garcia, who is currently hospitalized and facing emergency surgery.
Gonzalez Garcia, who has autism, disappeared on Oct. 4 while his mother was selling fruit on the northwest side of Houston. He went to use the restroom and did not return.
Houston police found him the next day at a McDonald’s off Airline Drive near the North Freeway.
Authorities said Gonzalez Garcia told them he was homeless, from another country, and had no local family.
After what HPD said was four hours of trying to track down an appropriate contact, with the help of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), authorities contacted the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Gonzalez Garcia has been in their care since.
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However, immigrant rights group FIEL Houston and Gonzalez Garcia’s mother say the teen has the cognitive ability of a four or five-year-old and would not have been able to provide accurate information or carry on a proper conversation.
“We demand to know what happened, and we demand his immediate return to his mom. Because now, during this stage of recovery, there’s no better place for him to be with mom,” Cesar Espinoza, executive director of FIEL Houston, said.
Gonzalez Garcia is currently hospitalized at Texas Children’s Hospital with appendicitis and was expected to undergo emergency surgery on Monday evening.
His mother has only been able to communicate with him via video chat, but was able to see him late Monday at the hospital.
“These last days have been very difficult for her, and she’s quite alone. And how even she knows that Emmanuel can’t quite express that he wants her to be with him, but she knows that he’s scared,” Espinoza said.
Houston police confirmed that ICE was contacted when Emmanuel was found, but an ICE spokesperson said he was never in their custody.
HPD also confirmed that Gonzalez Garcia disappeared in April, but the missing person alert was canceled after a couple days and he was reunited with his family.
The family and FIEL emphasized that Gonzalez Garcia was and is not an unaccompanied minor.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement has not responded to requests for comment.