In February, an ICE agent directed Emilio, a Deaf man, to get onto a bus in southern Texas. By that point, Emilio had spent nine weeks in immigration detention and didn’t know what was going on. He asked for a sign language interpreter and told me he didn’t get one. It was only when he saw the Mexican flag that Emilio realized that he was not being deported to his home country of Venezuela; instead, he was entering a country where he had never lived.
“I don’t know people here,” said Emilio, who did not have his passport on him when he reached the border.
The bus first dropped him off in Villahermosa, and he made his way to Mexico City thanks to the financial support of fellow Deaf people. He’s been stuck in Mexico ever since.
Emilio’s last name and the last name of the other Deaf person, Edgar, who spoke with Mother Jones about their deportations, are being withheld due to fear of retribution as they pursue potential legal avenues to return to the United States.
Emilio was working at Amazon when he was detained at a check-in appointment for his asylum case in December 2025. He had been living in Texas for close to four years and expected his appointment to be routine, like the four before it had been. By early August, Emilio was unsure whether his asylum case was officially closed. (“I’m not being informed of anything,” he emailed me in Spanish.) A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not respond directly to a question about why Emilio was detained at his asylum check-in.
The surge in deportations under the second Trump administration has, by most accounts, overwhelmed America’s immigration system. Serious questions have emerged about whether officials have overlooked red flags in hiring in order to meet President Donald Trump’s demands. Detainees have reported going days and weeks without adequate food, water, or medication. For Deaf detainees, these problems are compounded by language deprivation. There is no publicly available information on how often Deaf people are given interpreters at various parts of the immigration process, let alone in detention centers.
Emilio didn’t know Mexican Sign Language when he arrived, which differs from Venezuelan Sign Language. Many countries in Latin America have their own forms of sign language, even if Spanish is a dominant language across the region.
Deaf immigrants also risk having poor-quality interpreters for sign languages other than American Sign Language during the deportation process, as the United States doesn’t recognize any certification process specifically for other sign languages. Interpreters are essentially taken at their word that they can interpret well in non-ASL forms of sign language.
More than 100 Deaf people who report sign language as their primary language have received deportation or removal orders since the beginning of 2026, according to data provided to Mother Jones from the nonprofit Mobile Pathways that was verified by our publication. This is likely an undercount of Deaf people who are deported, as this data is not by disability, but rather by people who count sign language as their primary language, which deaf people who use hearing devices like cochlear implants and hearing aids may not. Deaf people risk language deprivation while in ICE detention and in court proceedings. That deprivation has been the subject of lawsuits alleging violations of disability civil rights laws. In one such case, a Deaf Mongolian person detained in California did not have access to an interpreter for four months.
Historically, Deaf people in ICE detention have been able to seek remedies through DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. However, in March 2025, as I previously reported, the Trump administration laid off over 150 of its staff, leaving the office at that time with two full-time staffers.
“The system is already draconian for all ICE detainees, and an extra layer of cruelty is added by also depriving communication access for deaf people,” Alina Engelman, a deaf California State University, East Bay, public health professor, told me. “Withholding communication access denies deaf people’s humanity.”
Regulations for the first disability civil rights law in the United States were enacted in 1977, following a federal sit-in by disabled people. This law, the Rehabilitation Act, protects disabled people’s right to reasonable accommodations in places that receive government funding. This includes ICE detention and court proceedings.
“DHS is supposed to ensure that you are able to access the immigration process equally to a non-disabled person,” Disability Law United attorney Laura Murchie told me. “Forcing someone to sign a self-deportation form without them fully understanding what’s happening is a violation of their due process.”
That’s what Edgar, another Venezuelan Deaf person, alleges happened to him.
Edgar, who had sought asylum like Emilio, found community among Deaf people living in Utah.
Edgar told me via sign language interpreters from his mom’s home in Venezuela that he was detained by ICE in May after a court date for an incident in which he was pulled over for speeding. He was arrested for speeding, driving without a license, driving under the influence, and possession of a controlled substance by the Utah Highway Patrol, a DHS spokesperson said.
Edgar moved between a handful of detention centers, ending up in California. Edgar said he was being pushed to sign documents that he didn’t understand. Because his ability to read English is not great, he asked for an interpreter. Learning ASL, as Edgar was working on while living in the United States, is different than having proficiency in reading English, illustrating the need for sign language accommodations for Deaf people if given legal documents.
An interpreter never came. Overwhelmed, Edgar signed the papers. He said he was unaware that these were self-deportation papers for which a signature would state that he would voluntarily leave the United States. Edgar was eventually able to get on a video call with a friend, who told him that the paperwork he signed would likely give the US standing to deport him.
“I wanted to be able to get the signature canceled because I didn’t know what had happened,” Edgar told me via sign language interpreters.
Octavio Cuenca Maldonado, president of the National Hispanic Latino Association of the Deaf, told me that experiences like Edgar’s are common. “Without effective communication, a Deaf individual may not fully understand their legal rights or that they can communicate with a family member or medical provider.”
Edgar wasn’t able to revoke his signature. He was deported to Venezuela in June after around 15 days in ICE detention. When we spoke in July, Edgar was still trying to figure out what was next for him.
A DHS spokesperson said communication with Edgar during processing was in written Spanish and did not deny that he was not given an interpreter as requested when he was given self-deportation papers.
Discrimination against disabled people in ICE detention is widespread, Murchie told me. One of Murchie’s clients, Ulises Peña López, says that his medical needs were not met while in ICE detention and that he was mocked by staff for his disabilities. Emilio told me he was laughed at while initially detained when he said he needed an interpreter and tried to gesture that he needed water during a period when he was shackled for hours.
Since January, Celena Ponce of Hands United has escalated her work trying to be a resource for Deaf people in ICE detention centers. She has supported around 20 Deaf people as of July in ICE detention centers, all of whom say they were forced to go long stretches without sign language interpreters. Her organization has also provided sign language interpretation for Deaf immigrants to tell their stories to reporters like me.
“ICE provides all detainees with a documented hearing disability with an effective method of communication, as is reasonably needed,” a DHS spokesperson said.
In addition to fears of being profiled shared by many Latinos, Cuenca Maldonado told me that Deaf Latino people have additional reasons to be concerned about communication with ICE officers, especially if they are wearing face coverings.
“As a Deaf person, I rely heavily on visual communication, including facial expressions, lip reading when appropriate, written notes, or speech-to-text on my phone,” he told me. “If I cannot clearly see someone’s face or identify who they are, it becomes much harder to communicate.”
While some states have passed mask bans in response to ICE’s escalating tactics, these bans have been blocked by courts in California, Virginia, and most recently New York, leaving Deaf people still uniquely vulnerable in those areas.
There are also limited Deaf and disability-focused organizations actively working to help Deaf people in detention; Cuenca Maldonado told me he refers Deaf Latino people facing immigration problems to Ponce, as he trusts the work she is doing.
Emilio says he is still left wondering why he was targeted.
“I’ve been doing good, I haven’t been ignoring any of the things that I was supposed to do,” Emilio told me toward the end of our conversation in July. “I just didn’t understand.”