Diego Puma: Deported Ossining teen arrives in Ecuador

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.

Diego Puma-Macancela, the Ossining High School student deported to Ecuador after a two-week legal fight with federal immigration authorities, arrived in the city of Guayaquil at 5:36 p.m. local time Friday.

Friends and relatives of the 19-year-old high school senior said Puma-Macancela and his mother, Rosa Ines Macancela-Vazquez, began their day at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Louisiana and finished it in Ecuador.

They were among about 300 U.S. deportees on the flight.

Their family said both were "emotional" when they arrived in the southern Ecuadorean city, particularly over the extent to which supporters rallied for them, including in Ossining. where they had lived for three years and had established roots.

After arriving in Ecuador, they were taken to their home town of Azoques.

Their deportation ended a legal battle waged by immigration rights advocates who fought to have the teenager and his mother remain in the country, at least long enough for him to earn his high school diploma.

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Despite two appeals, several rallies and an online petition drive that drew nearly 25,000 signagures, ICE officials confirmed Friday that Puma-Macancela and his mother had now been returned to their native Ecuador.

"ICE removed Diego Ismael Puma Macancela and his mother, Rosa Ines Macancela Vazques, to Ecuador on Friday, June 23, in accordance with their final orders of removal," Rachael Yong Yow, spokeswoman for the agency, said in a statement.

The case has drawn headlines since June 8, when Puma-Macancela, 19, was arrested by ICE agents in Ossining, one day after his mother was taken into custody.

Lawyers for Neighbors Link, a Mount Kisco-based immigrants rights group, took up the high schooler's case and filed two appeals for a hold on the deportation order. Both were denied by ICE, most recently on Wednesday night.

Puma-Macancela and his mother entered the country in 2014 and were arrested. But they applied for asylum and were allowed to remain pending a decision. On Nov. 16, an immigration judge signed a deportation order, which lead to their new arrests.

Neighbors Link said ICE cited the teenagers alleged gang activity in Ecuador, something the Ecuadorean government subsequently challenged in a letter to ICE last week. But it fell short of convincing the government that it should reconsider.

School officials said Puma-Macancela did not have enough credits to graduate last week with the rest of the Ossining senior class. He was expected to take additional classes this summer and could have had enough credits by August.

Twitter: @jfitzgibbon