Following a 48-day detention after the Houston Police Department handed him over to state officials, Emmanuel Gonzalez-Garcia faced city officials on Tuesday.
After 48 days in federal custody, 15-year-old Emmanuel Gonzalez-Garcia, his mother, and an immigration rights advocate faced Mayor John Whitmire and the Houston City Council on Tuesday.
Gonzalez-Garcia was held by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement as an unaccompanied minor after becoming separated from his mother, Maria Garcia, in October. The Houston Police Department handed off the teenager, who Garcia said has autism, after they were unable to connect him to a missing child report initiated earlier in the day.
According to Whitmire, HPD referred him to Texas Child Protective Services, which sent him to federal officials — contrary to previous reports that HPD sent him directly to Immigration and Customs Enforcement…