NewsPublished: Jun. 25, 2026, 5:42 p.m.Ericson with his 17-year-old brotherTeresa VelascoBy Sarah Whites-Koditschek | swhites-koditschek@al.comA Latino family says U.S. Customs and Enforcement Agents left their 5-year-old son alone in a car after detaining his father near Mobile. Ericson, 5, was riding in the car down Highway 59 with his father on June 17 when they were pulled over by ICE agents, community organizer Teresa Velasco said. ICE agents took their car to a nearby church parking lot and let the father call his wife, she said. “They left the kid inside the car and gave him (his Dad’s) phone,” she said. A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to a request for comment. Normally, ICE agents would wait with a minor for relatives to arrive after taking a parent into detention, but this time was different, Velasco said. Ericson’s mother was at work in Mobile when she got the call so she called their babysitter, who asked her 20-year-old twins, who are U.S. citizens, to pick up the boy. When they arrived, the twins took a video of the child sitting alone in the vehicle in a large, empty parking lot. He was on the phone, speaking to their mother, who was asking him to stay in the car. “Once the twins got there, I think it was kind of like an ambush thing,” said Velasco. “As soon as they parked, all of a sudden, the ICE agent guard showed up asking for…ID and they took a picture of the license and left,” she said. Velasco said leaving the boy alone could have put him in danger if he ran out of the car into traffic or was taken by a stranger. Sarah Whites-Koditschek is an investigative reporter at AL.com. She previously worked in public radio as a reporter and producer at member stations and as a freelancer for National Public Radio and American...