{"id":42745,"date":"2025-11-17T19:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/42745\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:48:13","slug":"judge-orders-16-year-old-nyc-boy-freed-as-orwellian-feds-try-to-deport-him-brazen-cruelty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/42745\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders 16-year-old NYC boy freed as ‘Orwellian’ feds try to deport him: ‘Brazen cruelty’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge Monday\u00a0ordered a Bronx 11th-grader\u00a0<\/a>to be immediately released from ICE custody as the Trump administration continues its alleged \u201cOrwellian\u201d bid to try to deport the kid.<\/p>\n

District Judge Cathy Seibel said at the hearing in White Plains that 16-year-old Joel Camas\u2019 legal team successfully showed his \u201cimmediate release is necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are talking about a minor who will suffer irreparable harm by being removed from the school part way through the year,\u201d Seibel said.<\/p>\n

Bronx high-schooler Joel Camas, 16, \u2014 pictured with mother Elvia Chafla (above) \u2014 was picked up by US immigration authorities when he went for a routine check-in in late October. Beth Baltimore<\/p>\n

The obviously\u00a0irked judge ripped the legal posture of the office of US Attorney for the Southern District Jay Clayton as \u201cOrwellian or Kafkaesque.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour clients are dead-set on pursuing this particular case?\u201d she asked Assistant US Attorney Rachel Kroll, who is repping Clayton\u2019s office. \u201cThey don\u2019t see any need to avoid the resources being put into it and work something out?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kroll reaffirmed that the feds still want to boot the boy.<\/p>\n

The teen sat calmly inside the courtroom wearing a hooded sweatshirt as the judge read her ruling ordering his release \u201cright now.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joel, a junior at Gotham Collaborative High School in The Bronx, had a 100 percent attendance record before he was taken into custody by ICE at his routine check-in with immigration authorities Oct. 23, according to a court filing.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration is cracking down on suspected illegal migrants. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

He and his mother Elvia Chafla fled Ecuador in December 2022 because of gang violence but had a US removal order against them since losing their asylum case in 2024, where they appeared unrepresented, according to the teen\u2019s lawsuit seeking permanent residency. Chafla self-deported earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration had actually granted Joel \u201cSpecial Immigrant Juvenile\u201d status in April, meaning a court already found that it is not in his best interest to return to Ecuador. Joe\u2019s suit claims this protects him from deportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City Comptroller Brad Lander appears with the 16-year-old before the teen was taken into ICE custody. Instagram\/@brad.lander<\/p>\n

But federal officials say he can still be deported, and the two sides made their case to Seibel for more than an hour in court Monday, but no decision has been released.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The teen can now leave the youth shelter at the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where he has been staying as ICE tries to continue to remove him from the country, as long as he remains in the custody of his uncle, the judge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s a huge relief that Joel can finally go home, ICE should have never detained him in the first place,\u201d said Elizabeth Gyori, senior staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, who is repping the teen.<\/p>\n

Another person is detained by ICE after an immigration hearing. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBy arresting a child with legal status at a routine check-in, ICE acted with brazen cruelty, broke US law, and violated the Constitution,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Trump administration should expect to keep seeing us in court if they continue to punish people for following the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives for federal prosecutors did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0the city filed a supportive legal brief in his federal case<\/a>\u00a0fighting his ICE detention and deportation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge Monday\u00a0ordered a Bronx 11th-grader\u00a0to be immediately released from ICE custody as the Trump administration continues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9207,2035,2850,57,9,56,63,65,64,209,129,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-42745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-deportation","9":"tag-ice","10":"tag-lawsuits","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-public-schools","18":"tag-the-bronx","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}