Diego Puma: Ossining teen to be deported on Friday

Jorge Fitz-Gibbon | Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Show Caption Hide Caption Video: Ossining High School students hold rally for Diego Puma Fellow students and supporters of the Ossining High School senior held a rally outside the high school Friday. Puma and his mother, natives of Ecuador, were arrested and detained by immigration agents last week.

Ossining High School student Diego Puma-Macancela, the subject of a high-profile fight to stave off deportation, will be flown back to Ecuador on Friday after federal immigration officials denied his final appeal to remain in the U.S.

Officials at Neighbors Link, the Mount Kisco immigrants rights group that represents the 19-year-old high schooler, were informed Wednesday night that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had rejected their second petition to keep Puma-Macancela in Ossining long enough to graduate high school.

"Diego is leaving his home, his family, and friends behind to return to a country where retaliatory gang violence — possibly even death — await him," Carola Bracco, executive director of Neighbors Link, said in a statement Thursday.

ARREST: Ossining teen in custody

REUNITED: Puma moved out of NY

APPEAL: Deportation not final

"Diego and his family asked us to express their profound gratitude to everyone who supported his cause and worked hard to keep him in this country," Bracco said. "He deeply values the education he received at Ossining High School and is very sad that he came so close to graduating but in the end was not allowed to accept his diploma or attend his senior prom."

The teenager and his mother, Rosa Ines Macancela-Vazquez, were arrested in Ossining by ICE agents earlier this month, sparking a debate over the limits of President Donald Trump's shift in immigration policy.

Puma-Macancela and his mother have been in the country since 2014, when they crossed the U.S. border and were arrested by border patrol. They applied for asylum, claiming they were fleeing violent gangs in Ecuador, and were allowed to remain while their request was being considered.

But on Nov. 16 an immigration judge signed an order of deportation, which prompted their arrests in Ossining earlier this month.

The case became a rallying cry for immigration rights advocates, and a test case for proponents of the stricter immigration policies pushed by Trump.

ICE had not commented on the case since issuing an initial statement when Puma-Macancela was arrested June 8. In an email Wednesday, Rachael Yong Yow, a spokeswoman for the agency, said "ICE doesn’t confirm impending removals to protect the safety of individuals in our custody, as well as our officers."

Supporters twice rallied outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Manhattan and outside Ossining High School in support of the teenager. An online petition gathered more than 20,000 signatures.

U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, a Harrison Democrat, intervened in the teenager's case and prompted immigration officials to move Puma-Macancela to the Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, where his mother was being held, last week.

But earlier this week Puma-Macancela were both moved to immigration detention facilities in Louisiana, near one of the airports designated for ICE removals.

Lawyers for Neighbors Link and the New York Immigration Coalition filed an appeal of the deportation order last week but were rejected. They said ICE maintained that Puma-Macancela had links to gangs in Ecuador, the same gangs he and his mother said they were fleeing when they sought asylum in 2014.

In a subsequent letter to ICE, Linda Machuca, consulate general of Ecuador in New York, disputed that claim.

"We have reviewed our government records and have confirmed that he has no criminal record in Ecuador," Machuca wrote. "Additionally, based on our evidence, he is not now, nor ever has been affiliated to the gang Sombra Negra or any other gang in Ecuador."

A second petition was filed this week on the teenager's behalf, which again sought a stay, or a hold, on the deportation order. That was denied Wednesday night.

Twitter: @jfitzgibbon



