NYC immigration judge reopens Bronx public school student's case

Cayla Bamberger, New York Daily News on Jun 16, 2025

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NEW YORK — A New York City immigration judge has reinstated a Bronx public school student’s bid for asylum after the Trump administration moved to dismiss his case and fast-track his deportation, his lawyers said Monday.

Judge Olivia Cassin granted the so-called “motion to reconsider” by Dylan — whose last name is being withheld by the Daily News at his family’s request — at the end of last week because the 20-year-old asylum-seeker from Venezuela didn’t have the time or information necessary to “make an informed and knowing decision about the consequences of dismissal.”

“By reconsidering its dismissal and reopening these removal proceedings, the Court corrects its failure now,” Cassin wrote.

Dylan appeared at a routine court check-in on May 21 without a lawyer. When the government dropped his case, plainclothes immigration authorities were able to arrest him at the courthouse and place him in an expedited deportation process.

After reviewing an audio recording, Cassin found the answers the Trump administration gave Dylan about such a dismissal were “imprecise and potentially misleading.” She added that Dylan should’ve been on the court’s juvenile docket and that the dismissal was “greatly prejudicial” to a person without a lawyer.

“We are grateful for this decision, which allows Dylan to continue his pursuit of asylum, as he should have been allowed from the beginning,” said Melissa Chua, one of Dylan’s attorneys at the New York Legal Assistance Group. “This is an important acknowledgment of what was clearly an outrageously unjust and misleading violation of due process.”

Dylan is currently being held at a Pennsylvania facility, where he continues to challenge his detention and possible deportation in federal court and his passage of an interview with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on whether he has “credible fear” of returning to his country.

DHS has held that migrants like Dylan who entered the United States during the Biden administration should’ve been placed in expedited removal at the outset. Officials did not immediately provide an updated comment.