ICE Denies Stay for Teen It Snatched Before Prom

OSSINING, NY — Lawyers for Diego Puma Macancela said ICE has rejected their application for a stay of removal after the Ossining teen was removed from his home by ICE agents on June 9, the day of his senior prom at Ossining High School. ICE denied the request Wednesday morning.

"They are accusing Diego of participating in a gang that he was actually fleeing from," said Carola Bracco, executive director of Neighbors Link. "In his asylum application Diego, who was 16, revealed the lengths to which he went to escape gang violence."

Bracco held a press conference Wednesday afternoon with Karin Anderson, Neighbors Link attorney and Macancela's legal counsel, and Charlotte Gossett Navarro, regional outreach manager at the New York Immigration Coalition. (Click here to get Patch’s daily newsletter, news alerts and updates.)

They did have one piece of heartening news: ICE has moved Diego to the same detention center as his mother. The detention center Diego was originally taken to is not good and would have been quite frightening, Anderson said.

SEE: UPDATE: ICE Says Ossining High School Senior Was Ordered Deported in November

"We'd like to thank Congresswoman Nita Lowey for advocating for the reunion of Diego and his mother," she said.

Bracco said that Diego and his mother came across the border in Texas three years ago. They were detained and released, and applied for asylum. In 2016 their application was denied and a deportation order issued.

The way people present their application can have implications that they don't understand, Anderson said.

Neighbors Link officials were on the phone with the family and coordinating community immediately after Diego was detained, Bracco said. The northern Westchester nonprofit had recently expanded its services into Ossining. It helped mobilize the community. "The evening Diego was picked up we met with the family and community leaders," Bracco said. They held a press conference Monday at Federal Plaza in Manhattan that was attended by almost 100 people.

"In terms of policy and law thousands of people are affected every day. These policies are a burden not only to immigrants but to entire communities and the economy," Anderson said. "The position of someone in this application is that they are in a position where they are subject to deportation and are asking ICE not to enforce the application for humanitarian and discretionary reasons."

Mount Kisco's Michael Cindrich was also on the call. He said the case was troubling "because my message [to his local community] had been if you stay out of trouble you have nothing to fear."

Anderson would not give specifics about the avenues now being pursued, citing attorney-client privilege.

"There are no barriers to his deportation," she said. "However, the process is a long administrative process. It can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months."

The 19-year-old Ossining resident had been ordered deported by a judge back in November.

As of Wednesday morning, 19,282 people had signed an online petition in support of getting him back to Ossining to finish his high school education.

"We have to remember Diego was a child when he arrived here in the United States," said Gossett Navarro of the New York Immigration Coalition. "He continues to be part of a community...that has been traumatized by his detention. We often think of the effect it has on the immediate family....in Diego's case his school community was really preparing to celebrate ....they arrived to find that one of their classmates had been detained."

The advocates asked members of the community to reach out to their elected officials about the problems with the cycle of deportation in which children and families who are escaping violence are being turned away. There are assumptions that it's a fair process if someone's gone through it. But it is deeply flawed, they said.

People can also help by reaching out to immigrants in their communities, they said.

Susan Copley of Christ's Episcopal Church in Tarrytown was also on the call, asking what local clergy could do.

Anderson said local clergy should help their parishioners make contact with nonprofits who can help them.

Ossining town Supervisor Dana Levenberg asked if ICE was using Diego's case for scare tactics. She also wondered if there was something the Ossining community could have done differently.

"Coming at it from the very specific legal perspective, I think in terms of doing anything differently the one thing we can be doing going forward that would have helped this family would be to prepare a 'removal defense package' that they proactively meet with an attorney or a nonprofit such as Neighbors Link," Anderson said.

"Regarding the ICE question, I would not characterize this as a 'scare tactic,'" she said.