A Queens high school student detained in a Texas immigration facility for more than a month broke down in tears as he embraced his family during an emotional reunion Friday morning at Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, an “outstanding” 11th grader at Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, had been held at an ICE facility in Livingston, Texas, since June 8. He was arrested on June 4 after attending a scheduled immigration court appearance in Manhattan as part of his asylum application.
On July 18, Derlis stepped off a Greyhound bus with a bandaged leg, his face visibly softening with relief as he spotted his family.
The month-long detention had been “emotionally difficult for him,” but his return to New York was met with cheers, quiet tears, and long-awaited embraces from family and supporters who gathered at the terminal.
The Chusin Toaquiza family, members of the Indigenous Panzaleo tribe in Ecuador, expressed deep gratitude to the New York Legal Assistance Group and the Envision Freedom Fund for securing his release, calling the legal team “brave women” who restored their hope.
In a translated statement, Derlis’ family said the experience had marked their lives forever and showed them that “there are more of those who are good in the world.”
“We can never repay those who lent their hands to lift up a family that had fallen,” they said. “You have restored hope where all was lost for us. But there is a God who sees all. And I know that He will reward you for everything you do for your neighbors.”
Celebrating the legal victory, Melissa Chua, director of the Immigration Protection Unit at NYLAG, expressed relief that Derlis was finally back home.
“He can play soccer, he can be on the swim team, and be a student again,” Chua said. “We are so relieved that he’s here, but it shouldn’t take a team of attorneys to get somebody who has never committed a crime, who has only been an upstanding addition to his community, out of detention and back.”
‘Violently taken from his family’
According to his attorneys, Derlis had been thriving before his detention. He was enrolled at Grover Cleveland High School, where he had recently received a “Most Improved Student” award, which his mother accepted on his behalf. He was active in school and church, helped care for his younger siblings, and was fully complying with immigration requirements before being detained.
Derlis was released from detention on Monday after a Texas immigration judge granted bond. The Envision Freedom Fund, formerly the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, posted the $20,000 needed to free him.
The bond hearing was secured after NYLAG filed an amended habeas corpus petition in the Southern District of New York. The legal team also received backing from the New York City Law Department, which filed an amicus brief in support of his release.
Lauren Reiff, associate director of NYLAG’s Immigrant Protection Unit, said the judge’s decision was based on the argument that Derlis posed neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community — the standard for granting bond in immigration cases.
“He was literally complying with his legal obligations at the moment he was detained,” Reiff said. “He had just finished a court hearing where he had been given another date to attend.”
Chua described Derlis’ detention as traumatic and unjust, saying the 19-year-old was “violently taken from his family.” She said the conditions were “horrible,” both in New York and Texas.
He was initially held at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan for several days in “extremely cramped” quarters with inadequate food and no space to rest, according to Chua. Court filings state he was confined in an overcrowded room with more than 60 others, unable to lie down, and forced to sleep sitting up.
The only bathroom was in an adjoining room with no door, only a waist-high partition. His attorneys said he received just two meals during his two-day stay there. He was later moved to an overcrowded gymnasium within the facility, where he slept on the hard floor for another two days with no beds, blankets, or room to lie down. Again, he received only one meal per day.
Despite notifying ICE officers that he suffers from gastritis and required additional food for medical reasons, no accommodations were made, court filings stated.
He was then transported more than 1,500 miles to Livingston, Texas, where the isolation weighed heavily.
“He’s 19, and he was held with men who were sometimes twice his age,” Chua said. “It was emotionally difficult for him, being so far away from his family.”
“He was only going to immigration court to seek the protections that he is due under the law and should not have been detained in the first place,” she added.
‘An amazing kid’
Outside the arrival gate Friday morning, his teacher, Michelle Koenig, fought back tears while speaking to the press before finally getting to embrace him.
“It’s been very, very difficult having him missing from our classes, having him missing from our community,” Koenig said. “He is truly an amazing kid.” She described him as cheerful, dependable, and generous.
“He’s the kind of kid who’s always smiling. The kind of kid who’s always willing to help. He’s always the first one to raise his hand to do something difficult — something in English class, when that’s not his comfort zone,” she said. “He’s just the epitome of someone who adds joy to everybody’s day.”
Koenig said his absence affected her both professionally and personally.
“My students are like my kids to me,” she said. “But as a mom, I just cannot even imagine what everything has been like for his family. I’ve been hugging my own kids closer and tighter, and being very aware of just how horrible this has been for them.”
“Seeing them reunited, it’s really powerful,” she added.
Derlis’ asylum case remains ongoing. NYLAG said it plans to request that the case, currently housed in a Texas immigration court, be transferred to New York so he can continue proceedings closer to home.
“We’re going to work to get his case transferred back to the local court here,” Reiff said. “This is where he will be, and hopefully, he just gets to go back to having a normal life in his community and be a teenager.”
NYLAG is also representing Dylan Lopez Contreras, a 20-year-old senior at Ellis Preparatory Academy in the Bronx who was detained by ICE in May.
The Venezuelan-born student is pursuing asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status but remains in ICE custody. NYLAG said they will continue their fight so that Dylan’s family will have the same reunion seen Friday.
At a rally outside 26 Federal Plaza on Thursday, protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies, Dylan’s mother, Raiza, pleaded for the return of her son.
She said that due to the stress of her son’s arrest in May, she has been forced to wear a heart monitor.
