A 6-year-old girl should be starting the school year — not sitting in an immigration detention center 2,000 miles from her home.

Dayra, a public school student in New York City, was detained along with her mother Martha and her 19-year-old brother Manuel after what was supposed to be a routine immigration hearing in Lower Manhattan.

Now, Dayra and her mother are being held at a facility in Dilley, Texas. Manuel has been separated from them and transferred to a detention center in Newark, New Jersey.

Their only “crime”? Fleeing gang violence in Ecuador and seeking safety in the U.S.

This isn’t justice. This is trauma.

Mental health experts, educators, and community leaders agree: detaining children — and tearing families apart — causes long-term psychological harm. In the words of a licensed clinical social worker advocating for the family, “The impact of family separation on their mental health is something they will not be able to recover from in many years to come.”

Dayra is believed to be the youngest student detained by ICE in New York City this year — and she’s far from the only one. These are not isolated cases. They are part of a system that punishes the most vulnerable rather than protecting them.

We are calling on ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to immediately release Dayra, Martha, and Manuel!

New York elected officials to publicly support the family and advocate for humanitarian parole.
 

No child should grow up behind a fence, and no family should be torn apart for seeking safety.