On Friday, a local newspaper in Allentown, PA, published a story making a salacious claim against the Trump administration. According to "family members," ICE had arrested and roughed up their 82-year-old grandfather, a legal asylum holder, before deporting him to Guatemala.
The Morning Call claimed that Luis Leon was trying to replace his lost green card at a local USCIS office when the Chilean national was deported to the wrong country, where he ended up in a hospital recovering from pneumonia. Further, the family said Leon's wife was kept in custody, in terrible conditions, for 10 hours before being released.
Multiple international news outlets, including The Guardian, ran with the story, giving it an air of credibility, to the point where AI engines like Google and Grok were claiming it was confirmed. But by Sunday, holes started to appear.
SEE: That Claim About ICE Deporting an 82-Year-Old Legal Immigrant to Guatemala Just Got Much Weirder
For example, why did the family first claim Leon had died in custody before changing the story to him being deported to Guatemala? Why could the Guatemalan authorities find no record of Leon being admitted into their country? Why was the granddaughter, who was the primary source for the press, claiming that Leon had "no plans" to return to the United States if he was illegally deported to a country he's not even from?
Instead of pressing those inconsistencies, though, The Morning Call doubled down. According to their first update of the story, the granddaughter flew to Guatemala and relayed information from Leon himself, including a series of new or altered claims. Immigration lawyer Nicolette Glazer, who has been chronicling this story from the beginning, was immediately skeptical given her expertise.
UPDATE on the UPDATES on the alleged deportation by ICE of Luis Leon to Guatemala:
— Nicolette Glazer (@NicoletteGlazer) July 21, 2025
So, after Guatemala flatly denied that anyone with the name Luis Leon from Chile has crossed officially into Guatemala, much less been deported there by ICE, the Morning Call puts up an "update"…
The Morning Call doubles down and now says
1. not only is Mr. Leon in Guatemala he got there on 1 July 2025 (10 days after his alleged arrest at the local USCIS office)
2. Mr. Leon "was taken in handcuffs from a Philadelphia immigration office and driven two days by bus to a detention center in Minnesota". To the best of my knowledge, there are no ICE run or GEO/Core Civic/LaSalle etc (private for profit prisons) detention facilities but I believe there are 3 county jails that have contracts with ICE to hold detainees. But the 2-day bus straight bit is not believable and will be a clear violation of the transport standards.
3. Remember the story about how a relative in Chile was the one who found Mr. Leon in a Guatemala City hospital. The new version is that "a Chilean government contact of Leon’s brother was able to reach an official [in Guatemala] who told him Leon had been taken to Minnesota, then to Guatemala. It isn’t clear if that official was from ICE or another government agency." Hmm what?!
4. Mr. Leon does not plan to come back to the US.
To say things weren't adding up would be an understatement. Key details in the story didn't even match up with the reality of how the American immigration system works. That included the idea that Leon went to replace his green card, something that hasn't been available to do in person for years, and on Monday night, the house of cards finally toppled.
As it turns out, not only did Guatemala have no record of Leon entering the country, but the hospital he was claimed to be at had no record that he was ever there either. An even bigger bombshell dropped, though. Chilean authorities are now saying that a man with the name Luis Leon, who had the same birth date as the Luis Leon from this story, died in their country in 2019.
NEW: It appears another hoax has been attempted. Family members of an 82-year-old Chilean man in PA went to the media claiming ICE arrested him while renewing a green card in Philly, that he died in ICE custody, then that he was secretly deported to Guatemala. The story went… pic.twitter.com/a1jRXT6qBu
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 22, 2025
It appears to have been all made up by the family, which has since gone dark and stopped responding to the press. Here's what happened since the story first ran in The Morning Call, an Allentown, PA newspaper.
- Records in Chile show a man with his same name and date of birth died in Chile in 2019.
- Guatemala says they have no record of him being deported to their country.
- DHS says there is no record of him appearing at any green card appointment in the Philly area, and they say ICE never arrested him.
- DHS says they never deported him, and their only record of him entering the US is in 2015 from Chile via the visa waiver program, not an asylum grant from the 1980s as the family claimed.
- His granddaughter claimed he was sick in a Guatemalan hospital with pneumonia after ICE deported him, and that he was traumatized (after first claiming he was dead). A doctor at the hospital she claimed he was at says there is no record of him being there.
That meant The Morning Call had to make another update to their story. Naturally, their headline still made it seem like the controversy was ICE's fault.
ICE says Allentown grandfather Luis Leon was never taken into custody, calls story a ‘hoax’ https://t.co/xdTy1DsXR6
— The Morning Call (@mcall) July 21, 2025
A Chilean journalist, Jose Del Pino of Canalo 13, said a doctor at the Guatemala City hospital where Nataly claimed to see her grandfather had no record of him.
Additionally, Del Pino said, a man by the same name and date of birth died in Santiago, Chile, in 2019. Chilean citizens are issued national identification numbers and none matches another person with that name and birthday, he said. Del Pino provided a copy of the death certificate to The Morning Call.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that they'd been scammed, The Morning Call tripled down later in the article, repeating claims from "Nataly," the supposed granddaughter, without any critical analysis. The press has no bottom, and as for all those left-wing podcasters and influencers who repeated this story in dramatic fashion? They are still misleading their audiences.
🚨 UPDATE: DHS is now denying that Luis Leon was ever detained or deported. Guatemala says there’s no record either.
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) July 22, 2025
That’s a sharp reversal from earlier reporting. But if nobody detained him, who told the family he was dead?
The truth doesn’t vanish because the government says…
This entire thing was journalistic malpractice, and it will certainly not be the last time this happens. The mainstream press has its narrative, and they have shown they are willing to run with whatever badly-sourced garbage is given to them if they feel it can damage ICE's mission to enforce immigration laws. A scandal like this didn't call for an "update." It called for a full retraction and apology. We'll see if The Morning Call, The Guardian, and others eventually get there.
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