Man detained by ICE agents at PHL headed to Eagles/Chiefs game
Local man detained by ICE agents at PHL headed to KC for Eagles vs. Chiefs game
If you ask Jason Javie about his husband of four years, Henry Diaz, Jason is more of the Eagles fan in the marriage, but Henry is the one who knows how to throw a party.
“He does the tablecloths and the flowers, and it’s usually exquisite food,” Jason said. “He has attention to detail, impeccable taste, sense of style.”
Just two weeks ago, Henry pulled out all the stops for his annual White Labor Day party at their place in Point Breeze for friends and family. Ever the traveling couple, too, the plans for this weekend were to fly alongside Jason’s mom to Kansas City to visit Jason’s brother and see the Eagles play at Arrowhead Stadium.
Instead, Henry was detained by ICE agents as he was boarding the flight to Kansas City early Friday morning at Philadelphia International Airport.
Jason, who had scanned his boarding pass right before Henry, said the first sign of something being wrong came when Henry scanned his.
“There was sort of a strange beep and a man came and sort of took Henry by the arm,” he said.
Jason said Henry was taken out of the boarding line and quickly surrounded by ICE agents.
One of them pulled out a smartphone and showed Henry a photo of himself on the screen.
“You know you have a final removal order, right?” Jason heard the agent say.
Jason’s mom, who was making her way onto the flight right before Jason and Henry, returned to the gate entrance to see the commotion and immediately called her sister-in-law Sharon Javie when she saw Henry being detained.
“She called to ask us to pray because agents surrounded Henry, they handcuffed him, and they took him away,” Sharon said. “All I could say was, ‘Oh dear lord.’”
When reached for comment, an airport spokesperson said they didn’t have any details about Henry’s detention on Friday morning or ICE’s operations at the airport and directed KYW Newsradio to ICE.
Information from this article was sourced from KYW Newsradio
