Dylan Contreras, a Bronx high school student apprehended by federal immigration agents last year, was released from a detention facility in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, according to his lawyers and immigration advocates.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Contreras during a routine immigration hearing in Manhattan last May. He was the first New York City public school student to be detained during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Advocates and elected officials rallied around Contreras, who had no criminal record, and held him up as an example of the misguided cruelty of ICE’s strategy.
“We are overjoyed that Dylan is finally able to return home,” said Kate Fetrow, an attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group, which was representing Contreras, in a statement.
Contreras, she added, had been “unjustly detained for simply following the rules.”
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Contreras, who was 20 at the time he was detained, was attending ELLIS Prep, a Bronx public high school intended for older immigrant students who have been in the country for less than a year.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a statement celebrating Contreras’ release but also criticizing his detainment.
“What should have been a time for him to focus on finishing high school instead became 10 long months of isolation, after he was taken into custody at what was supposed to be a routine immigration hearing last May,” Mamdani said.
Earlier this month, advocates for Contreras reached out to Mamdani after he visited the White House and presented Trump with a list of individuals tied to Columbia University with pending deportation cases.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer also pressured White House officials to release Contreras. Contreras’ mother, Raiza, joined Schumer at the president’s state of the union address in February.
On Wednesday, Schumer said the Trump administration had “heeded his calls.”
“I sat with Raiza as she cried in my office the night of the State of the Union and told her I would do everything in my power to help bring her son home, and I am thrilled they are together once again,” Schumer said in a statement.
Immigration advocates Power Malu and Candice Braun said they had picked Contreras up at his detention facility on Tuesday night. “This is a moment for joy and celebration,” they said. “He is now free and back with his family in NYC where he belongs.”