A Queens high school student, arrested for more than a month at an immigration center in Texas, broke into tears when hugging his family during an emotional reunion on Friday morning at the Port Authority bus terminal.
Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, an outstanding 11th grade student at the Ridgewood Cleveland School Grover School, was held since June 8 in a center of ICE in Livingston, Texas. They arrested him on June 4 after presenting himself to a hearing scheduled in the Immigration Court in Manhattan as part of his asylum application.
On July 18, Derlis got out of a Grayhound bus with a banded leg. His face showed immediate relief to see his family.
The confinement was “emotionally difficult for him”, but his return to New York was marked by applause, silent tears and long -awaited hugs by his loved ones and supporters who expected him in the terminal.
The Chusin Toaquiza family, which belongs to the Panzaleo indigenous people in Ecuador, expressed a deep thanks to the New York Legal Assistance Group (Nylag) and the Envision Freedom Fund for achieving their liberation. They called the legal team “brave women” who returned hope.
In a translated statement, the family said that this experience changed their lives forever and showed them that “there are more good people in the world.”
“We can never pay those who extended their hands to lift a fallen family,” they said. “You returned hope where there was no longer left. But there is a God who sees everything, and I know that he will reward you for everything they do for your neighbor.”
They celebrate the legal victory
Melissa Chua, director of the Nylag Immigrant Protection Unit, celebrated Derlis’s return: “You can now play football, be in the swimming team and be a student again. We feel relieved to have it back, but there should be no need for a team of lawyers to free someone who has never committed a crime and who has only been an exemplary member of his community.”
“They ripped it violently from his family”
Derlis’s lawyers explained that before being arrested, he was thriving. He was registered in Grover Cleveland High School, where he recently received the “most improved student” award, which his mother accepted in his name. He actively participated in the school, in the Church, took care of his brothers and met all the migratory requirements.
On Monday, an immigration judge in Texas granted him a bond. The Freedom Fund (formerly Brooklyn Community Bail Fund) paid the $ 20,000 necessary to release it.
Nylag achieved the audience after presenting a modified habeas corpus resource in the Southern District of New York. He also received the support of the Legal Department of New York City, which presented an Amicus letter in support of his release.
Lauren Reiff, deputy director of the Nylag Immigrant Protection Unit, explained that the judge considered that Derlis did not represent either risk of escape or danger to the community, the legal standard to grant bail in these cases.
“He was fulfilling his legal obligations just when he was arrested,” said Reiff. “He had just finished an audience in which they had given him a new date to return.”
Chua described the arrest as traumatic and unfair. He said that ICE “started it violently from his family” and denounced “horrible” conditions both in New York and Texas.
Initially, ICE kept it several days in 26 Plaza in Manhattan, in a very small space, with little food and without a place to rest. Legal documents indicate that he shared a room crowded with more than 60 people, without being able to bed and forced to sleep.
The only bathroom was in an adjoining room without a door, only with a barrier at waist. He received only two meals during his stay there. Then, Ice transferred him to a saturated gym, where he slept on the ground hard for another two days without bed, blankets or space to bed. Again, they only gave him a daily meal.
Although he notified the agents suffering from gastritis and needed special food for medical reasons, ICE did not make adjustments, according to judicial documents.
Then they took him to more than 1,500 miles away, to Livingston, Texas, where family distance and isolation emotionally affected him.
“He is 19 years old and put him with men who sometimes were twice as his age,” Chua explained. “It was very difficult for him, to be so far from his family.”
“He only attended immigration cut to seek the protections that the law guarantees him. They should never have stopped it,” he added.
“An incredible young man”
Outside the terminal on Friday morning, his teacher Michelle Koenig could not contain the tears while talking to the press before hugging him.
“It has been very difficult to have it absent in our classes, absent in our community,” he said. “He is a truly incredible young man.”
He described him as cheerful, supportive and generous. “It is one of those who always smile, who is always willing to help. The first to raise your hand to do something difficult, even in the English class, which is not his fort. He is someone who rejoices the day to all.”
Koenig said his absence affected him both professionally and personally. “My students are like my children. But as a mother, I can’t imagine what this experience was for your family. I have embraced my own children, very aware of the pain they lived.”
“Seeing them gathered was really powerful,” he added.
Derlis asylum case is still in process. Nylag plans to ask that you transfer from the Immigration Court in Texas to one in New York so that you can continue with the process near your home.
“We are going to work to bring your case to the local court,” said Reiff. “This is where it should be, and we hope that soon I can have a normal life as a teenager.”
Another ongoing case
Nylag also represents Dylan López Contreras, a 20 -year -old, a last year student at Ellis Preparatory Academy at Bronx, who was arrested by ICE in May.
Dylan, born in Venezuela, seeks asylum and special status for immigrant minors, but still remains in custody. Nylag promised to continue fighting so that Dylan can meet with his family, as happened with Derlis.
During a protest on Thursday against 26 Federal Plaza against the migratory policies of the Trump government, Dylan’s mother, Raiza, publicly requested the release of his son.
She said that the stress of her arrest forced her to use a cardiac monitor.
