A New York high school student who was detained at an immigration courthouse in May last year, sparking national outrage, was released on Wednesday.
Dylan Lopez Contreras, 21, of Venezuela was a freshman at Ellis Prep academy, a Bronx public school dedicated exclusively to students who have recently arrived in the US. It was the first widely known instance of a public school student being arrested by federal immigration agents.
On Wednesday, he was released from the Moshannon Valley Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, after 10 months in detention.“It is both a relief and a blessing,” his mother, Raiza Contreras, said. “All glory and honor belong to God, who opened doors and made the impossible possible.” He arrived home on Wednesday evening, according to his lawyers.
Contreras’s arrest last year shocked his community, and previewed the Trump administration’s indiscriminate approach to immigration enforcement. In an essay he wrote for the Guardian from Moshannon Valley, Contreras said that his life in detention was “uncomfortable, stressful and monotonous”.