A Queens high school student detained by federal immigration authorities in Texas is expected to be released on bail in the coming days, his lawyers said Tuesday.
Grover Cleveland High School junior Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, 19, was attending a routine immigration hearing on June 4 when he was detained outside his courtroom. He spent days in an overcrowded holding room at 26 Federal Plaza, before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Livingston, Texas.
A Texas immigration judge granted Derlis’ release on Monday, according to his legal team, and a bail fund called the Envision Freedom Fund posted the $20,000 bond Tuesday morning.
“We are beyond thrilled that Derlis will soon be returning home to New York to be with his family where he belongs,” said Rebecca Rubin, a senior staff attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, and one of Derlis’ lawyers. “At the same time, our happiness does not erase the fact that Derlis was unjustly detained at his immigration court hearing, torn away from his family and community and detained in a prison with adult male strangers for over a month.”
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. After arriving in New York, he enrolled at the Ridgewood high school, where he recently made the soccer team and was awarded “Most Improved” by his teachers, according to court documents.
Derlis has no criminal history. The federal government had moved to dismiss his asylum case, but an immigration judge denied the motion and set a new court date, according to the filings. Agents arrested him anyway.
After he challenged his detention in federal court, the city’s Law Department filed a brief in support of his release.
Derlis was the second-known New York City public school student to be detained by ICE. The first, a 20-year-old Bronx transfer student named Dylan, is still being held at a Pennsylvania facility.
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