The deportation of a six-year-old New York City schoolgirl and her mother to Ecuador has led to widespread outrage. It again brings to light the constant tension over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics of arresting immigrant families during routine check-ins and hearings.
The girl, a second-grade student at P.S. 89 elementary school in Queens, was detained alongside her mother, identified as Martha, and her 19-year-old brother when they appeared for a scheduled ICE appointment at 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan on August 12.
While Martha and her daughter were deported this past Tuesday morning, the teenage son is still behind bars at a detention facility in New Jersey.
Governor Kathy Hochul condemned the enforcement action in unusually sharp terms. “This is cruel. And I say to those who did this: ‘where is your humanity?’” she said in a statement. Directly addressing the Trump administration, she added, “President Trump, you said you were going after the ‘worst of the worst.’ You think she’s really the ‘worst of the worst?’ I want to demand how you can possibly say yes.”
The arrest of such a young child under 18 years of age appears to be the first known case in New York during Donald Trump’s current term, marking a new and highly controversial step in how federal immigration authorities are operating.
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The Ecuadorian family first entered the United States through the southern border in December 2022, seeking asylum without official permission. Martha’s legal claims for asylum were denied in 2024, but despite the rejection, she consistently attended her ICE check-ins as required.
For over a year, those check-ins had passed without incident until last week, when the family was suddenly taken into custody and separated. ICE’s online system initially suggested Martha was being held at one of the few remaining family detention centers in Texas, then listed her in Washington, D.C., before removing her entirely from the database.
Her 19-year-old son was first booked inside the Manhattan holding area at Federal Plaza, then transferred to Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, while his younger sister was forced aboard a deportation flight with their mother.
The six-year-old’s removal has left her school community deeply shaken. The principal of P.S. 89 elementary school, in a letter pleading for her release, described the girl as “a kind, respectful, and dedicated young lady” and warned authorities that her deportation “will cause significant disruption to her learning and will likely have a deep emotional impact on her classmates and our entire school community.”
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Lawmakers also denounced the handling of her case. “There is no greater depravity than separating a family and deporting a 6 year-old child two weeks before she is supposed to start school,” said Assembly member Catalina Cruz and City Council Member Shekar Krishnan in a joint statement. “It is a shameful stain on our country’s history and conscience.”
Federal officials defended their decision, arguing that the case was legally settled. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said the family had final removal orders and insisted that undocumented immigrants with similar cases should leave on their own. “If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return,” McLaughlin stated.
Although this was the first known deportation involving a child in New York City during the Trump administration, data shows it is part of a broader trend. According to information shared with The City by the Deportation Data Project, ICE agents in New York arrested forty-eight children over the course of June and July alone.
Last week, ICE arrested a six-year-old Queens public school student at her family’s scheduled check-in. This morning, she was deported along with her mother. One of her siblings remains in detention.
The cruelty of this federal administration knows no bounds. pic.twitter.com/A7hYA787WC
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) August 19, 2025
In May, Dylan Lopez Contreras, a 20-year-old student from Venezuela enrolled at Ellis Prep Academy in the Bronx, was apprehended immediately after an immigration court hearing on his asylum claim.
Earlier this month, advocates rallied for Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, a student at Brooklyn Frontiers High School originally from Guinea, who officials confirmed was at least the third public school student apprehended by ICE in 2025. Diallo was placed at the Pike County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania, where he remains.
The detentions have prompted lawsuits and mounting anger over courthouse arrests in particular, which many judges and lawyers say turn legal proceedings into what has been described as “deportation roulette.”
A previous ICE directive had limited the use of such arrests to avoid discouraging immigrants from appearing in court, but the Trump administration rolled back those protections during its first days in office. As a civil rights lawsuit challenging the practice argues, that decision “exposed individuals who properly appear for their hearings, including to seek asylum and other relief, to the imminent threat of arrest and indefinite detention.”
This is a young girl being detained by ICE in handcuffs who looks no more than 10 y/o.This whole scene is troubling enough but,then you see that it’s a male cop or agent searching her and patting her down.This should be a female not a male no matter what this child’s age is! 😡 pic.twitter.com/fmFBRhArdz
— Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) May 11, 2025
The backlash extends far beyond New York. With schools across the United States preparing to open for the fall term, immigrant families from coast to coast are bracing for the possibility of additional arrests.
In Los Angeles, local school districts have already begun adopting special protective measures to guard against sudden ICE raids. Protesters in New York, meanwhile, have intensified demonstrations outside courthouses and federal buildings, accusing the government of targeting children and tearing apart families who had been living peacefully for years.
