Sawt Falasteen - Venezuelan student freed after months in US immigration custody

Dylan Contreras, 21, was detained last May after attending an immigration hearing at a New York City court and then transferred to a detention facility in Pennsylvania, sparking a widespread backlash.

Immigration officials said Contreras, who left Venezuela in 2024 seeking US asylum, was in the United States illegally. His lawyers refute this and argue he was denied due process.

The circumstances of his release are unclear and his asylum case is still pending.

"It's really terrible being in there," Contreras said of his detention during a news conference in Manhattan.

"There are all kinds of people who truly didn't deserve to be in there, and with this case I want to keep fighting for them, because that's what needs to be done.

"Everything we've gone through is unfair," added Contreras, who attended a New York school for migrants above the traditional age limit.

Wearing a baseball cap of the New York Knicks basketball team, he was joined by his mother, as well as the city's leftist mayor Zohran Mamdani and Democratic state Governor Kathy Hochul.

"He belongs in New York City. This city has been missing him, and we are so grateful that you are home. This is your home," Mamdani told Contreras.

"And as Dylan has reminded us, this is but a glimpse into something that is affecting so many across the city, across the state, and across this country," he added.

Hochul called Contreras's arrest "reprehensible and disgusting."

"He was thrown away like a piece of garbage into a prison in Pennsylvania," she told reporters.

"This day has to be replicated over and over and over until everyone is reunited with their loved ones."

Immigration enforcement has become a major flashpoint between Trump's Republicans and Democrats.

Protests have erupted in recent months across the United States and, adding to tensions, immigration officials shot dead two US citizens during demonstrations in Minneapolis in January.

"The cruel immigration policies sweeping our nation do not protect us," said Shani Adess, vice president at New York Legal Assistance Group, which represents Contreras.

"The demonization of immigrants goes against our history and our reality, and it sows the fear that is threatening who we are."

U.Shaheen--SF-PST