A nine-year-old Canadian boy has been released along with his parents from an immigration jail in Texas where they were detained for six weeks. Kevin Yourdkhani and his Iranian-born parents arrived in Toronto last night. They had been held in a controversial privately owned jail in Texas where the U.S. government is holding up to 200 immigrant children. They were detained after their flight to Canada was forced to make an emergency landing in Puerto Rico. The family was fleeing political repression in Iran and were trying to seek refugee status in Canada where their son had been born. Four weeks ago, Kevin Yourdkhani spoke to Democracy Now! in his first broadcast interview.

Kevin Yourdkhani: “I want to be free. I want to go outside, and I want to go to school. I want to be in my homeland: Canada.”

Following that interview, public outcry intensified in Canada. Two weeks ago the Canadian government agreed to give Kevin’s parents a temporary residency permit. Human rights groups are now calling for the U.S. government to stop jailing immigrant children and for the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas, to be shut down. We’ll have more on the story in a few minutes.