A New York high school student who was detained at an immigration courthouse in May last year, sparking national outrage, was released on Wednesday.
Dylan Lopez Contreras, 21, of Venezuela was a freshman at Ellis Prep academy, a Bronx public school dedicated exclusively to students who have recently arrived in the US. It was the first widely known instance of a public school student being arrested by federal immigration agents.
On Wednesday, he was released from the Moshannon Valley Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, after 10 months in detention.
“It is both a relief and a blessing,” his mother, Raiza Contreras, said. “All glory and honor belong to God, who opened doors and made the impossible possible.” He arrived home on Wednesday evening, according to his lawyers.
Contreras’s arrest last year shocked his community, and previewed the Trump administration’s indiscriminate approach to immigration enforcement. In an essay he wrote for the Guardian from Moshannon Valley, Contreras said that his life in detention was “uncomfortable, stressful and monotonous”.
He missed his mother’s food, he said, and he missed his friends. “I would not know what to say is the hardest thing [about detention], but if I had to lean toward something, it would be the confiscation of my cellphone, which has left me cut off from my relationships,” he said.
Contreras was enrolled as a freshman at Ellis because his education had been interrupted when he immigrated from Venezuela to the US, his teachers said. His education was further derailed by his prolonged detention.
“Nothing can undo the injustice of denying Dylan even a modicum of due process, stealing his liberty and personal autonomy, and snatching away the precious time, education and experiences he’s been forced to miss for nearly a year of his young life,” said Kate Fetrow, associate supervising attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) and a member of Contreras’s legal team. “His release today is a momentous step in the right direction as we continue to fight to restore justice for Dylan and his family.”
Lawmakers, including New York senator and minority leader Chuck Schumer, had advocated for Contreras’s release. Schumer had invited Contreras’s mother to the State of the Union address in February. “I am glad the administration has heeded my calls and righted this wrong, but there are many more families like Dylan’s that have been torn apart because of ICE,” said Schumer. “The chaos experienced by so many communities and families at the hands of ICE must end.”
In additional essays for the Guardian, several of Contreras’s friends and classmates said they had been shaken by his detention. “I worry that my other friends could be arrested, too,” said Roger, one of his close friends. “It’s a constant fear I have and I’m always worried when they go out and I’m not there because I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.”
The Department of Homeland Security said Contreras “has been released with a GPS tracking device”.
“If a judge finds he has no right to remain in the US, he will be swiftly removed,” a spokesperson for the agency said.
