A 16-year-old undocumented immigrant living without a parent in New York City was detained Thursday morning during a routine check-in with federal officials, as President Trump’s immigration crackdown has begun to target more minors who entered the United States illegally.
The immigrant, Joel Camas, had been without his mother for about four weeks after she voluntarily returned to Ecuador in hopes that her son could avoid being deported.
On Thursday morning Joel arrived for a routine appearance at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, the New York City headquarters for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. With him was an entourage of eight adults that included Beth Baltimore, his lawyer, and Brad Lander, the city comptroller.
Because Joel has no legal guardian in the United States, he was turned away from that building, which has become the epicenter of adult migrant detentions in New York, and directed to a different federal building. There, employees said they were confused by his arrival, and asked the group to wait; hours later, Joel was abruptly escorted behind closed doors with Ms. Baltimore, then taken from her.
From a room that is inaccessible to the public, Ms. Baltimore texted Mr. Lander:
“Detaining him”
Mr. Lander gasped and doubled over, distraught by the news.
“Oh, no, no,” he said as his voice weakened.
Ms. Baltimore then emerged, tears welling in her eyes.
“I had no idea this was going to happen,” she said. “I was too hopeful.”
The government had issued a deportation order against Joel, but he had applied for and received a designation known as special immigrant juvenile status, which opens a pathway to lawful permanent residency. Ms. Baltimore said that, historically, the classification has protected minors from deportation, but the rules seemed to be shifting rapidly during Mr. Trump’s administration.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that Joel and his mother had been issued final orders of removal by a federal judge on Feb. 28, 2024, under the Biden administration.
“His mother self-deported to Ecuador and Camas remained in the U.S.A. alone as a minor,” Ms. McLaughlin wrote in an email. “Fortunately, now Mr. Camas will be reunited with family.”
From Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January through the end of July, ICE has detained about 50 children younger than 18 in the New York City area, according to federal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley. Like Joel, many have been from Ecuador. At least 38 children and teenagers from the metropolitan region have been deported, the data shows.
Joel had been staying in the Bronx with relatives and attending Gotham Collaborative High School. He met Ms. Baltimore, his lawyer, through a youth social services center called the Door, which offers essential services such as health care, mental counseling and legal assistance to 12- to 24-year-olds.
As he arrived for his check-in on Thursday morning, he was carrying a black Nike backpack and hoped to get back to school before the first bell at 8 a.m. He was looking forward to his favorite subject, English, and to having a warm meal after standing in the cold for much of the morning. On Halloween, he said, he had planned to hang out with his friends.
The immigration officials who detained Joel did not tell Ms. Baltimore where he would be taken, and on Thursday afternoon she rushed to find him, and to file legal paperwork to prevent his transfer to another jurisdiction, where he would be removed from his lawyer and his relatives. She also notified the city’s Department of Education as well as the office of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes Joel’s home in the Bronx.
Lawyers with the New York Civil Liberties Union were also working with Ms. Baltimore to free him, and on Friday morning, they filed an emergency petition to challenge his detention, deeming it illegal because of Joel’s special immigrant juvenile status.
The lawyers argued that Joel had been in compliance with all government orders and that his deportation would place him in danger in Ecuador. They said that his arrest had undermined the immigration process and violated due process.
“Again and again, the government has claimed that they are targeting criminals and getting rid of the worst of the worst, and this is in reality who they’re going after,” said Amy Belsher, the director of immigrants’ rights litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It’s offensive that they would target an 11th grader for arrest and removal when he has done nothing other than follow the rules here.”
Joel’s mother, Elvia Chafla, had appeared at 26 Federal Plaza about four weeks ago for a similar check-in, and at the urging of ICE officials, she decided to fly home to Ecuador to avoid being arrested and to give her son a better chance of staying in the United States. She believed that her departure would satisfy the ICE agents who had encouraged her to self-deport, and that they would leave her son alone because he had a path to lawful permanent residency, while she did not.
Ms. Chafla fled South America with Joel almost three years ago, making the perilous walk across the Darién Gap on foot, in search of better opportunities and a safer place to live, away from gang violence.
In the United States, Joel has dreamed of becoming an auto mechanic or Army soldier. Ms. Chafla is now living in Ecuador with relatives.
Ms. Chafla sobbed when Ms. Baltimore called to tell her about Joel’s detention on Thursday, and she pleaded for him to stay with relatives in New York.
“That’s why I left him,” Ms. Chafla said during a phone call Friday morning. “I didn’t know this would happen.”
Ana Ley is a Times reporter covering immigration in New York City.
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