New York City’s Law Department filed an amicus brief in support of a Queens high school student who they said was “caught in a trap laid by immigration authorities” at a local courthouse.
Grover Cleveland High School junior Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, 19, was detained last month after a routine immigration hearing, the Daily News previously reported. He has no criminal history.
The federal government had moved to dismiss his case, but an immigration judge denied the motion and set a new court date, according to the filing in Manhattan federal court. Agents arrested the Ecuadorian citizen anyway.
The Law Department wrote that the city had a “strong interest” in the case because such tactics present residents “with an impossible choice: risk detention by attending court proceedings or run the same risk by failing to attend.”
“Our judicial system cannot work as it should, as it must, if courthouses are treated as convenient places to spring traps,” city lawyers said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment.
Derlis and his family sought asylum in the United States last year to escape alleged discrimination in Ecuador for being part of an indigenous group, the Panzaleo people.
When they arrived in New York, Derlis enrolled at Grover Cleveland in Ridgewood, where he recently made the soccer team and was awarded “Most Improved” by his teachers, according to other filings on the court docket.
On June 4, Derlis, his mother and younger sister had their first immigration check-ins in separate courtrooms at 26 Federal Plaza but planned to meet outside, his lawyers said. Instead, Derlis was arrested by “three or four” ICE agents. His mom waited after her case was adjourned, but her son never showed.
For several days, Derlis was held in two spaces in the building: a small room so crowded that he had to sleep sitting up, then a gym without beds or blankets, according to the filings. His lawyers estimated he was only given one meal per day, despite having a stomach inflammation condition.
Derlis has since been moved to an immigration detention center in Texas and missed his high school awards ceremony, the court documents said. While he remained in detention, his teachers presented the “Most Improved” award to his parents at home.
The Adams administration has also filed amicus briefs supporting Bronx transfer student Dylan and a 20-year-old Queens resident who previously attended a public school. The filings followed a week of backlash against Mayor Adams, who was slow to condemn Dylan’s arrest.
“We know that when immigrant communities are not able to use city services, it makes us all less safe,” Adams said in a statement Tuesday. “Once again, we are taking legal action in support of another young, New York City student, who was doing what he was supposed to do in attending a mandatory, routine immigration hearing.”
