Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.
A New York City public school student who was detained more than a month ago by immigration agents was set to be released on bond this week from a Texas facility, his lawyers said Tuesday.
Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, a 19-year-old from Ecuador, was completing his junior year at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents at a legal hearing seeking asylum on June 4. He was sent to an ICE facility in Livingston, Texas, on June 8, and remained there until a Texas immigration judge granted his release on a $20,000 bond, which was posted Tuesday by Envision Freedom Fund (formerly the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund). The organization is working with Derlis and his family to coordinate the teen’s trip back to New York.
Derlis was the second known New York City public school student to be arrested by ICE agents. The first student, Dylan Lopez Contreras, who attended ELLIS Prep in the Bronx, is still being detained in a Pennsylvania facility since his arrest at an immigration court hearing in May. Both students are being represented by the New York Legal Assistance Group, or NYLAG.
NYLAG attorneys secured the bond hearing for Derlis through a habeas corpus petition challenging the validity of his detention. New York City’s Law Department then filed an amicus, or friend of the court, brief in support of Derlis’s immediate release.
Derlis was “was caught in a trap laid by immigration authorities in a courthouse in Manhattan, where federal, state, and local courthouses cluster within a few blocks,” city officials wrote in their legal filing. “These tactics risk driving underground those otherwise inclined to follow the country’s immigration laws, undermining the very system that those laws are designed to serve.”
NYLAG filed a similar legal petition on Dylan’s behalf, claiming that his due process rights were violated. The city also filed an amicus brief calling for Dylan to be released. But lawyers are still waiting for a judge to rule on the habeas corpus petition for Dylan.
Both students were part of a wave of arrests by ICE agents at immigration courts across the country in efforts to carry out President Donald Trump’s push to boost deportations. That tactic led to a sharp increase in immigration detentions in the five boroughs starting in late May. A Massachusetts student whose detention gained attention was recently released. But another student in Detroit was recently deported back to Colombia.
“We are beyond thrilled that Derlis will soon be returning home to New York to be with his family where he belongs,” Rebecca Rubin, a NYLAG attorney and a member of Derlis’ legal team, said in a statement. “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.”
Before being transferred to the Texas facility, Derlis spent days in an overcrowded holding room at Manhattan’s 26 Federal Plaza, where he was fed just one meal a day and forced to sleep sitting upright due to lack of space, his lawyers said.
Derlis had been doing well in school, playing on Grover Cleveland’s soccer team, and was awarded “Most Improved” by his high school teachers, according to the city’s legal filing. He was also active in his church before his life was upended last month, his lawyers said.
“He has been suffering greatly in detention, as has his family,” Rubin said. “Derlis was complying with his requirements, had applied for asylum with his family and was attending immigration court when he was unjustly detained.”
Chalkbeat New York reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.
