President Joe Biden has prioritized immigration policy in many of his early executive orders, including a 100-day moratorium on deportations. That block on most deportations just went into effect on January 22, but concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may go forward with at least one deportation covered by the moratorium prompted an outburst of criticism over the weekend. Alongside Representative Richie Torres (D-NY), attorneys for Javier Castillo Maradiaga, a 27-year-old resident of the Bronx in New York City, raised alarms about whether ICE will defy the new president’s directive.
As MSNBC reported, Maradiaga has been in the United States since he was seven, but didn’t apply to renew his status in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program in 2019 because he was afraid of Donald Trump’s administration, infamous for its immigration crackdowns and efforts to undo DACA. Rebecca Press, who represents Maradiaga and is legal director of the immigrant legal support organization UnLocal, told MSNBC that Maradiaga first faced deportation at age nine, even though his parents lived in the United States lawfully with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Press told MSNBC that Maradiaga had been covered by DACA until his status lapsed in 2019. After that, she said, he had an interaction with the New York Police Department, and then the New York City Department of Corrections turned Maradiaga over to ICE custody. He was being detained by ICE in Louisiana, Press said, a common spot where people are held days before deportation.
Shortly before joining MSNBC live on air, Press said she had been informed there was a chance Maradiaga might not be deported, but that Maradiaga himself had received conflicting information. She stressed that he isn’t the only person facing uncertainty about possible deportation. Despite the moratorium set by Biden, fears remain about whether deportations will continue.
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The confusion surrounding Maradiaga’s fate underscores the labyrinthian nature of the legal processes around immigration, and is also a reminder of ICE’s capacity. Rep. Torres, who got involved in the case with a letter to ICE’s acting director, told MSNBC that despite Biden’s order, he worries ICE could be a “rogue agency,” still loyal to Trump’s nativist ideology. He said that, for him, reigning in ICE is about a “freedom from fear” as outlined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"There are elements of extremism within ICE, which has been deeply radicalized at the hands of Donald Trump," Torres told MSNBC. "And even though Joe Biden is the president of the United States, I do worry that ICE remains loyal to the nativist ideology of Donald Trump, so ICE cannot be trusted to police itself."
Maradiaga’s lawyers told the New York Daily News that, following a pedestrian violation that was later dismissed, Maradiaga has been in custody for over a year, pending the scheduled deportation to Honduras, which had been set to take place in the early hours of Monday morning. Alma Maradiaga and Dariela Moncada, Javier's mother and sister, spoke at a rally Sunday to protest his deportation.
“I ask you, how many of you would be okay with not giving your child a hug? If my son is deported tomorrow, it has been 14 months that I haven’t been able to give him a hug,” Maradiaga’s mother said Sunday, according to NBC New York. "For 14 months, I haven’t been able to make him a meal. For 14 months, I can’t hug my child. It doesn’t matter how old he is, he’s my boy. Every night I cannot sleep. And I wake up every single day at 4:30 in the morning to try to give back to my community what the community deserves."
"I'm a dreamer; this is my dream. I have a daughter that is a U.S. citizen. I don't think that we came to this country to do anything bad," Moncada said, according to Spectrum News NY 1. "My brother, Javier, he was stopped and frisked. That's illegal. We have to stop feeding the police. NYPD is feeding ICE."
ICE officials told the Daily News that “certain removals” have been paused as of Friday. The moratorium comes from a January 20 memo from the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which instituted the 100-day moratorium on deportations, except for anyone who arrived after November 1, 2020, anyone engaged in terrorism or espionage, anyone who voluntarily waived the right to remain in the United States, and other cases as determined by ICE’s acting director.
The situation with Maradiaga underscores how Biden’s ambitious immigration reform plans aren’t as simple as instituting new policy without a means to enforce those changes. His administration has already defended DACA, overturned the Muslim Ban, reinstated a delay on enforced departures for TPS-protected Liberians, ended the emergency declaration Trump used to accelerate building the southern border wall, and proposed immigration reform for Congress to consider. These moves undo some of Trump’s most draconian changes to immigration, but they’re also being closely watched by people critical of the Obama-Biden administration’s record on deportation.
On Friday, the same day the deportation moratorium went into effect, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (who also challenged the 2020 election in court) filed a lawsuit attempting to block it from rolling out, as Reuters reported. Between GOP resistance and concerns about noncompliance within ICE and DHS more broadly, immigration reform could be a bitter fight moving forward.
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