New crisis for Sean
A NEWCASTLE-born man who had been due to be deported from the USA is in hospital with devastating injuries after being hit by a car following his release from a detention centre.
Sean Wicks, who left the North East for the USA as a teenager, spent a year at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Miami after being arrested for petty theft.
In February last year we published an appeal for help from Sean’s dad Neil, who said his son was set to be “dumped at Heathrow airport with no support” after becoming a victim of Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.
In the wake of the story, a friend of Sean’s offered to pick him up from Heathrow and accommodate him until he accessed services in Newcastle.
With Sean due to be deported on August 24, Neil arranged for a social worker to meet him at the gate until his friend got there. However, the 30-year-old, who has severe mental health issues and believes he was born and raised in California, “kicked off” at Miami Airport and his escorts returned him to the ICE detention centre.
In January this year, Neil says Sean was released into the community with no medication due to “rampant Covid-19 infections at the resource”.
He was put in a hotel initially but when his two-week isolation period was over Sean “disappeared” for three months.
Last week Neil was contacted by a detective in Hollywood, Florida, who said Sean had been hit by a car while crossing the road and had been put in an induced coma.
Fighting for his life in intensive care, Sean had suffered brain bleeds, a shattered pelvis and a broken elbow and arm in the crash.
He has now been taken out of the coma and undergone surgery but, as he has no health insurance, Neil says Sean will be discharged as soon as he is physically able to leave the hospital – and will have no access to
resources for his rehabilitation. Neil said: “I have this vision of him coming out on crutches and just wandering down the street – no medication, nothing.”
Sean went to the States at the age of 14 when his parents relocated from Forest Hall but his life started to unravel after his mum died from cancer in 2009.
Neil says his son was “suffering from grief but would not engage with a counsellor” and later started hearing voices.
He became homeless and transient and was later sectioned and diagnosed as schizophrenic.
The former championship rollerblader was handed over to ICE by a court in Florida when he was arrested for petty theft and found to have overstayed on his visa.
Neil said that due to Sean’s mental health issues he is adamant he was born in California and “refuses to accept” he was born and raised in the UK.
When the attempt to deport him failed, he was kept on a ward at the detention centre under the supervision of psychiatrists.
Neil added: “A representative from the Catholic Church legal services in Miami contacted us in January to say they were releasing Sean. Apparently they decided to release many detainees due to Covid-19.
“He has to check in with ICE once every two months, which is setting him up to fail because he is not going to do it.
“It was ridiculous to release him without medication.”
Over the next few months, Neil kept checking to see if Sean was back with ICE or in any of the local jails but there was no sign of him until he was hospitalised following the crash.
Neil has again been left fearing for his son’s future as he faces being discharged from hospital with no support.
Neil said: “If he is able to walk out of the hospital he will be asked to leave and there are no resources he can access due to his status.
“The only time he is going to get medication is if he is in an institution.
“He will need plenty of bed rest after the shattered pelvis but where is he going to get bed rest?
“That is what I am anxious and nervous about.
“His immigration status is still illegal, but he Biden administration are is bothered about people like Sean at the moment.
“If he offends he will most likely
I have this vision of him coming out on crutches and just wandering down the street – no medication, nothing Neil Wicks
be arrested and then ICE will be involved again. “Other than that, I would not be surprised if he is just allowed to wander the country.” Born in Newcastle, Sean was raised in Washington, Low Fell and Forest Hall and attended Longbenton Community College before relocating to Orlando with his parents in 2005, where Neil bought a property management company.
His parents, who were social and probation workers before the move, relocated on an E2 business visa, with Sean classed as a dependent.
The family were left devastated when Sean’s mum Susan died from cancer in 2009 and, rather than selling the business and returning to the UK, Sean said he wanted to go to LA as many professional rollerbladers lived there.
Speaking to us last year, Neil said: “I had had a skate shop – Sk8 Shak – in the VertX skatepark in Sunderland, so we moved to Long Beach.
“I opened a store and Sean worked there.
“He started presenting with odd behaviour – fixating on conspiracy theories and Satanism. We tried to get him to see a grief counsellor but he went to two appointments and refused to go back.
“Then the store was not doing well so I sunk the business.
“I told Sean he had to find a job but he refused to look for work, he would just sit around all day. I had to ask him to leave.”
Sean became homeless and “went into deep depression.”
Neil, who by that point had remarried, said: “We would drive for hours to visit him and put him in a hotel for two nights – that is all we could do for him most of the time.
“One day he was picked up at the underground and taken to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a mood disorder.”
Sean then started hearing voices and was sectioned.
He spent the next three years in and out of mental health facilities until 2018, when he left a resource that was trying to help him get residency.
His downfall came when he left California – a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants – and moved to Florida, where he was arrested for petty theft in 2019.