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20-year-old New York City high school student
from Ecuador released from a federal detention facility endured a frightening saga of summarily being whisked away by ICE agents, forced to sleep upright in an overcrowded holding room and then sent off to Louisiana before ultimately winning her freedom.
Her story echoes what critics of
President Trump’s stepped-up deportation campaign
have been saying:
Asylum seekers who’ve been told by judges they are safe
are being ambushed outside courtrooms, held in inhumane conditions and threatened with deportation despite fears for their safety in their home countries.
Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema was among those who have managed to find her way home after a Southern District of New York federal judge order her release, slamming ICE for violating her rights.
“ICE summarily detained Chipantiza-Sisalema pursuant to an agency policy of arbitrary detention without affording her notice or opportunity to be heard,”
Judge Analisa Torres wrote in the order
responding to a habeas corpus motion filed by her lawyers.
“There is no doubt that [ICE’s] ongoing detention of Chipantiza-Sisalema with no process at all, much less prior notice, no showing of changed circumstances, or an opportunity to respond, violates her due process rights.”
Chipantiza-Sisalema returned to New York on Wednesday after Torres ordered her release from the
Richwood Correctional Center
over the weekend. Her release,
first reported by The City
, came roughly three weeks after
her arrest at 26 Federal Plaza
following a routine asylum hearing.
At the June 24 hearing, an immigration judge left the door open on Chipantiza-Sisalema’s bid to stay in the U.S. to avoid persecution back home and gave her another court date. Nonetheless, federal agents,
lying in wait outside the courtroom
, arrested her the second she stepped foot into the hall.
Attorney Paige Austin with
Make the Road New York
sued on behalf of Chipantiza-Sisalema calling for her release, arguing that her sudden detention violated due process since her case status hadn’t changed.
She also argued she posed no flight risk and has no criminal record.
In her ruling, Torres noted that Chipantiza-Sisalema was held under conditions that are “substantially worse than those imposed on criminal defendants following convictions for violent felonies and other serious crimes,” and with “far less procedural protections” than those convicts.
Following her arrest, federal agents tossed Chipantiza-Sisalema into an overcrowded holding room on the 10th floor of
26 Federal Plaza
where she slept upright on the floor for nine nights and was often “extremely hungry” due to inadequate food.
ICE only allowed her three phone calls in the ten days she was held in the lower Manhattan courthouse, with each call lasting less than two minutes. They would not let her contact any legal counsel.
Stuck wearing the same red shirt and blue jeans she wore when she got arrested, Chipantiza-Sisalema was unable to shower or brush her teeth for the entirety of her detention. On July 2 she was flown over a thousand miles away to a Monroe, La. facility, where she was held until her release.
The young girl’s family made an emotional plea for her release earlier this month outside the courthouse where she was held, saying her deportation would mean certain death.
Chipantiza-Sisalema’s parents and then 4-year-old brother fled Ecuador in 2022 after being “nearly killed by individuals targeting the family”, Torres’ order states.
Chipantiza-Sisalema, who was 16 years old at the time, took refuge at her grandparents’ home in a different part of the country, but it didn’t last. Eventually she too faced threats and fled the country, crossing the Southern border in May of 2024.
“It’s complicated but we came to this country to save our lives because it’s very dangerous there,” Chipantiza-Sisalema’s father Marco Chipantiza, previously told reporters in Spanish. “It’s very different with the gangs that all over the country.
Chipantiza, 40, said his daughter was pursuing her GED at
RiseBoro Community Partnership
.
“I don’t understand these laws that led to the detainment of my daughter,” the distraught dad said. “I don’t understand why they are subjecting her to these conditions. I’m begging the authorities to understand my situation, and the situation of many immigrant families who are here looking for a better life.”
