For years, the sprawling jail complex in Essex County, N.J., where hundreds of undocumented immigrants have been held under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while awaiting court hearings, has been at the center of a fierce debate over federal immigration policy that peaked during the Trump administration.
Protesters call for release of Bronx man in ICE custody since 2019 allegedly for jaywalking
News 12 Staff
Updated on:Mar 07, 2021, 6:10pm EST
Protesters took to the streets near St. Mary s Park on Sunday to rally for the release of Javier Castillo Maradiaga, of the Bronx.
Community members say they are still fighting to free Maradiaga, who was taken into custody by ICE, allegedly for jaywalking in December 2019. Jaywalking on a street in the Bronx, a few blocks from where we are, they took and ripped up Javier Castillo Maradiaga out of our neighborhood, says Jorge Muñiz-Reyes, the organizer of Sunday s rally.
Dariela Moncada Maradiaga
toggle caption Dariela Moncada Maradiaga
Javier Maradiaga (far right) with his brother, Jason Castillo; mother, Alma Maradiaga; and sister, Dariela Moncada on Christmas Eve in 2017. Dariela Moncada Maradiaga
Javier Castillo Maradiaga s fate hangs in the balance, caught between a deportation ban and a temporary restraining order against it.
The 27-year-old former DACA recipient s planned deportation to Honduras early Monday morning had been stopped by President Biden s 100-day moratorium on most removals. He was even transferred from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement staging facility in Alexandria, La., to a facility in New York. But as of Thursday he was back in Louisiana, a point of final departure for many ICE detainees.