NEW YORK (AP) – He crossed the street the wrong way and now he could be deported at any time.
Javier Castillo’s family has been in suspense for more than a year, when the 27-year-old Honduran was arrested by police in the Bronx, New York, for the improper crossing of a street.
He has since been through jails in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana, and this week an immigration judge denied his request to be released from prison on bail.
Castillo, who once enrolled in a temporary immigration relief program for young immigrants, is now awaiting another judge’s decision that could mean his deportation to Honduras or reunification with his mother and siblings in the Bronx.
For months the odyssey of this young man has been condemned by numerous immigrant advocacy groups and congressmen, as New York City has publicly admitted that it was a mistake to hand over Castillo to federal immigration authorities and has called for his release. The charges of improper crossing and others that were later added were all dismissed.
“The continued detention of Javier by immigration authorities and many others violates our basic universal standards of how people should be treated in this country and by this government,” Terry Lawson, the executive director of Unlocal, told AP. , an organization that defends Castillo Maradiaga in the courts.
Alma Maradiaga arrived from Honduras to the United States in 1997, under an immigration protection called Temporary Protected Status, better known as TPS. Two of her children, Castillo, 8, and Jason, 6, crossed the southern United States border in 2002 and another daughter, Dariela, arrived a few months later.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency told the AP that after arriving in the country illegally, a judge ordered Castillo had until January 1, 2004 to return to Honduras. The boy stayed in the United States.
In December 2019 Castillo was arrested for the street crossing and turned over to ICE.
In January 2020, an immigration judge denied the young man’s request to stay the deportation order. The Board of Immigration Appeals also dismissed his appeal.
The New York City Legal Department has said that Castillo’s handover to ICE was an “operational error” and that, upon discovery, a Department of Prisons official was suspended and assigned to another position. The municipal department asked ICE for Castillo’s immediate release but the agency has not agreed.
“Since February 26, he has been in ICE custody in the Hudson County Jail (New Jersey),” said the agency spokesman.
Castillo could be returned to his country because a Texas judge recently stopped US President Joe Biden’s order to freeze deportations for 100 days.
ICE also told the AP that although Castillo applied for immigration relief for young immigrants known as DACA years ago, the young man did not renew it and therefore is no longer covered by this program.
Lawyers and activists who have held several protests in defense of Castillo on the streets of Manhattan say they will continue to fight for the Honduran to remain in the United States with his family.
“We will continue to fight Javier’s detention and deportation alongside the community that supports him and with all those whose lives have been drastically affected by our deportation machine,” Lawson said.
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