Dylan Lopez Contreras spent his first full day back home in New York City worrying about the people he had left behind in immigration detention.
Mr. Lopez Contreras, a migrant from Venezuela who is seeking asylum, was arrested 10 months ago during an appearance at a courthouse for a routine hearing. His detention, which lasted nearly a year, was the first widely known instance of a public school student in the city being apprehended by federal agents as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The release of Mr. Lopez Contreras from a detention center in Pennsylvania on Wednesday was celebrated by politicians across New York State, who gathered on Thursday at a church in Lower Manhattan to condemn his confinement and that of other immigrants who remained behind bars.
“We didn’t deserve to be there,” Mr. Lopez Contreras said in Spanish in front of a crush of journalists and news cameras. “I have to continue fighting for them.”
On Wednesday, officials with the Department of Homeland Security said that Mr. Lopez Contreras had entered the United States illegally under the Biden administration, and that he remained subject to deportation.
Mr. Lopez Contreras was 20 when he was arrested last May and he turned 21 while in detention. He had been attending Ellis Preparatory Academy, a school in the Bronx that enrolls migrant students who are considered too old to start at a traditional high school. He left Venezuela in 2024 with his family and was going to school while working as a delivery driver.
On Thursday, Mr. Lopez Contreras’s hair flowed past his shoulders, grown out from the mop of soft curls that he wore in pictures taken before his arrest and shared widely by teachers and relatives who lobbied for his release. He was flanked by a crowd of advocates and politicians that included Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Julie Menin, the City Council speaker.
From the audience, immigration advocates called out his name and urged for the release of other migrants, chanting: “Bring them home!”
“He was taken from the city,” Mr. Mamdani said. “He was put in detention for nearly a year, and he was robbed of what should have been his, because above all else, Dylan is a New Yorker. He belongs in New York City.”
Ms. Menin denounced the detention of Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, a data analyst employed by the city. A judge on Wednesday issued a deportation order for Mr. Rubio Bohorquez, an action that Ms. Menin called shameful and vowed to fight.
Power Malu, a co-founder of ROCC NYC, an immigrant advocacy organization, accompanied Mr. Lopez Contreras during his release from detention. He thanked Mr. Lopez Contreras for thinking of others who remained behind bars, calling him a “humble giant” because of his towering height.
Mr. Lopez Contreras had been detained at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, which notified his legal team on Tuesday that he was eligible for release, according to his lawyer, Melissa Chua, who is with the New York Legal Assistance Group. Mr. Malu then traveled with Candice Braun, his ROCC co-founder, to pick up Mr. Lopez Contreras. He was released on his own recognizance and told that he must comply with routine immigration check-ins.
Mr. Malu said that Mr. Lopez Contreras had been disheartened to see more migrants arrive at the detention center as they left.
“He wants to be happy,” Mr. Malu said on Thursday, “but he’s still sad because they are in there.”
Ana Ley is a Times reporter covering immigration in New York City.
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