ICE detention of New York City public school student sparks protests
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- There is growing outrage over the detention of a young Venezuelan immigrant who advocates say was duped into giving up his asylum status.
The 20-year-old New York City public school student named Dylan was taken into custody by ICE agents who were waiting after a hearing in federal immigration court.
The outrage reached the steps of the city's education department in Lower Manhattan Thursday evening, where demonstrators rallied and demanded Dylan's release.
"Dylan has been tricked, trapped and kidnapped," said Immigrant rights activist Power Malu. "He was doing everything the right way."
Malu has been in touch with Dylan's mother, who's now in hiding.
In just eight days, ICE has shuttled Dylan around to four different states across the country, including as far away as Texas. He's now locked up in western Pennsylvania.
"He came here legally. We need to make clear he came through a port of entry, asylum seeker and has work authorization, social security" Malu said. "Everything that he needs to do to be compliant and make sure he's on the path to immigration status, he's been doing. He's been going to his court hearings and that's exactly what he did in this situation."
Earlier Thursday, demonstrators held a vigil outside immigration court. It was the same federal building where Dylan was taken into custody last week.
Clergy and immigrants' rights activists circled the building, marching in silent protest over the nation's deportation agenda -- policies they insist are racist and inhumane.
"Nothing can change unless the people stand up, we know that what we are doing is on the right side of justice, soon people will understand this and will stand up," said Ravi Raragbir with New Sanctuary Coalition.
Unlike others arrested in the city earlier this year, Dylan had no criminal record and was in the U.S. legally. He, his mother and his siblings had been granted temporary protected status (TPS) under the Biden Administration's asylum program.
"This is gestapo-like behavior where plain-clothes officers wearing masks are terrorizing immigrants who are doing the right thing by going to court, following up on their immigration proceedings, and trying to come into this country lawfully," said Rep. Dan Goldman.
On Wednesday night, demonstrators descended on an ICE detention facility in SoHo, shouting and chanting, determined to block vanloads of migrants from being moved out of the city.
By some accounts, some demonstrators were hit with pepper spray. They sat down in the middle of the street and were warned to disperse. When they refused to move, 23 protesters were arrested, and led away in handcuffs. There were no serious injuries.
Trump Border Czar Tom Homan, while speaking on Fox News, declared that deportations are being stepped up dramatically.
"We've got 600,000 criminals walking the streets of this country that we need to get, so yeah, we increased the number of teams," Homan said. "We're going to have over 1,000 teams on the street. We are putting more targeting in this. We've got to increase these arrests and removals. These are public safety threats."
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