They were given a path to a green card reserved for young immigrants who experienced abuse or abandonment in their countries of origin. He was later arrested and deported by the Trump administration.
January last year. From Dec. 20 to Dec. 22, ICE detained 265 people and deported 132 youths with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), Department of Homeland Security Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev. According to the letter sent to, obtained exclusively by NBC News.
“It’s tearing them from the stability they have, from the life they’re building on their way to permanent protection,” said Rachel Davidson, director of the End SIJS Backlog Coalition, part of the National Migration Project.
Congress created the SIJS Pathway to Legal Residence in 1990 to protect immigrant minors who have been victims of abuse, abandonment or neglect in their home countries and to provide them with a path to remain in the US and obtain green cards. They must be under 21 when they apply for status.
Because of the backlog of green card applications, starting in 2022, young people are typically protected by a policy called Deferred Action for Immigrants with SIJS. That protected them from deportation and allowed them to work legally in the US as they waited in the visa backlog to apply for green cards. In June, the Trump administration ended deferred action for SIJS recipients, but that policy has been put on hold by a court case.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in June that SIJS recipients were “clearly disallowed deferred action and related employment authorization.” It said the lack of immediately available visas, in part because of the backlog, and juvenile courts saying the youth must stay were not “compelling enough reasons” to stay in deferred action.
Cortez Masto told NBC News: “We specifically identified them because they are fleeing their countries in terrible conditions. We don’t want them to be further harmed or exploited in our country, so we have created specific provisions under the law so we are looking out for their best interest.”
Emma Israel, senior policy analyst at Kids in Need of Defense, a non-governmental organization that advocates for unaccompanied and separated children, said the figures shared by DHS were “higher than we expected.”
DHS said 132 of those deported were charged with immigration violations, such as without entry or without visas. Federal data did not reveal whether anyone faced criminal charges or convictions.
In one case, lawyers are fighting the return of a 16-year-old who was deported to Guatemala in May despite being granted special immigration juvenile status in July 2024.
Elias came to the U.S. alone at age 14 in 2023 after suffering “severe physical and emotional abuse and neglect at the hands of his mother,” according to court documents to return to the U.S. He was released from immigration detention and sent to live with his father and other relatives in Louisiana.
“The physical abuse he suffered was so severe that he was hospitalized for his injuries,” the complaint said. “The neglect he faced was constant: Ilyas was often left alone for days or weeks without access to food. Although other family members tried to help as much as they could, Ilyas lived in fear of his mother and her partner, and his home became a place of anxiety and danger.”
Last April, USCIS granted Elias’ deferred action “without any advance notice or opportunity to respond and without any explanation,” the complaint said.
The following month, their father was briefly detained by ICE and told to return to Guatemala with their children in May.
“In the early morning hours of May 21, 2025, ICE agents spent nearly 12 hours in a hotel room in Alexandria, Louisiana, deporting Elias to Guatemala without a removal order,” the National Immigration Project, a membership organization of lawyers, advocates and community members, wrote in a statement in November. “They did not allow Elias contact with his attorney. ICE’s actions violated federal law and Elias’ constitutional rights.”
Elias’ case is still ongoing, but the other youth remains in ICE custody.
Cortez Masto led a group of lawmakers in June who called on DHS to disclose how many youth with SIJS have been arrested or deported or lost their deferred action.
In July, the National Immigration Project and other groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of SIJS recipients, challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to end deferred action. In November, a judge ordered the government to pause the termination as the case continued.
Senior Staff Advocate of the National Migration Project S. Ellie Norton, despite the court’s ruling, said her agency has seen “an extremely disturbing pattern of ICE detaining young people with no criminal history, then detaining them with no notice, no explanation, and no opportunity to respond.”
According to a letter DHS sent to Cortez Masto, DHS terminated deferred action for 990 immigrants with SIJS between January 20 and December 30 of last year. “Many of these terminations involved cases with derogatory information (including criminal convictions),” it said. The data shows that from May 6, 2022 to last year, 315 people showed their deferred action status.
Norton estimates that more than 150,000 young people with SIJS are waiting to get their green cards.
The letter showed that only one of the immigrants taken into ICE custody last year was listed as “offense or commission of a felony involving moral turpitude,” a term for crimes that can make noncitizens deportable or barred from relief. Such crimes include driving under the influence, fraud, theft or violent crimes.
Advocates and advocates say those deported before applying for green cards lose their eligibility to become lawful permanent residents.
More on immigration issues
For youth to obtain special immigrant visa status, state courts must find that they cannot live with either or both of their parents because of established abuse and that the best interests of the children are not returned to their home countries. The immigration court must then issue the petitions to SIJS.
Last week, a 20-year-old man from Ecuador, identified in court documents as JMS, was arrested by ICE and detained despite having SIJS and no open deportation case against him, according to a petition seeking his release.
JMS came to the US in 2022 and was abandoned by her mother, the petition said. They were granted SIJS status in January 2025. When his SIJS and deferred action were approved, an immigration judge ended removal proceedings against him, according to the records.
“Despite all of this, JMS is now locked in a jail cell. He does not understand why he is being held when he has all his documents in order and has deferred action to protect him,” according to court documents.
Protection from deportation for those young immigrants was dealt another blow last week. The Board of Immigration Appeals, an agency of the Justice Department, has ruled against SIJS recipients seeking to reset or postpone deportation proceedings because immigrants have long pending green cards.
Norton and Davidson said the court’s decision will inevitably mean more SIJS recipients will be ordered removed, many before they can apply for green cards.
As lawyers fight ongoing arrests in court, some SIJS recipients have been released.
In a scathing order this month, a federal judge in New York found that the arrest, detention and deferred action termination of a 24-year-old SIJS recipient from Honduras was unlawful.
Hessler Asaf Garcia Lanza graduated from college with honors and was working in theatrical lighting design when ICE arrested him in January, the order said, “because he looked like someone else the agents were looking for.”
Despite the wrongful arrest, Garcia Lanza was held until a court ordered his release, U.S. District Judge Gary Brown wrote.
“Subsequently, DHS proceeded to revoke his deferred action and work authorization related to his SIJ status—a reprehensible act of unimaginable cruelty,” he wrote.
DHS imposed additional conditions on him in addition to a “hefty fine,” according to Brown.
According to the court order, García Lanza said: “Since my arrest, I have been afraid to leave my house. Every time I step on the train to go to work, I have extreme anxiety. I feel scared knowing that ICE agents can take me away at any moment. I have never felt sad in my life since I came to the United States as a little boy.
“This is not how things work in America,” Brown wrote in his order.
“Undoubtedly, the laws of human decency condemn such wickedness,” he wrote.
