17-07-2025
A ‘special immigrant juvenile' designation used to offer some young immigrants security. These days? Not so much.
'I had everything in order,' he said in Spanish. 'I thought they were going to release me at that moment. But it wasn't like that. They checked everything and they cuffed me, my legs and my hands, and they put me in the black van.'
Jaime, who asked to be identified only by his first name to limit the risk of retaliation against his family and friends, was sent to a federal prison in Berlin, N.H., where he was strip-searched and authorities insisted he was
Advertisement
Jaime remained behind bars for more than seven weeks, until a federal judge in New Hampshire ordered the government to release him.
Congress
Advertisement
Since applicants often spend years waiting, the Biden administration said in 2022 it would automatically consider granting deferred action for each SIJ recipient. That way, people in Jaime's shoes could go about their lives without constant fear of detention and deportation.
But stakeholders noticed the Trump administration began withholding deferred action from SIJ recipients in early April, according to
'This leaves abused and abandoned youth in legal limbo while heightening their vulnerability to exploitation,' the lawmakers wrote.
The following day, US Citizenship and Immigration Services formally
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit whose advocacy for restrictive immigration policies has been
The number of SIJ petitions approved each fiscal year by the federal government rose from about 40,000 in 2020 to a record high of nearly 71,000 in 2024, according to government data. More than 300,000 people have been approved as SIJ designees over the past 15 years, but that is a small subset of the US immigrant population and represents a group Congress has identified as deserving humanitarian relief.
Advertisement
Detentions have increased in recent months as the Trump administration pursues a quota of
Jaime's immigration attorney,
'He's done absolutely nothing wrong,' she said.
Jaime is from an Indigenous village in central Ecuador, where his parents and six siblings sometimes didn't have anything to eat, according to court records. He left home at 14 and rented a room in a nearby city, where he continued his studies while working in a factory slaughtering chickens.
Jaime said his parents never called and never came to visit. Even when they were in the city for work, they didn't speak with him. In a sworn declaration, he told a Massachusetts judge he feels his parents don't love him and were relieved he left.
'I took care of myself the best I could,' he said.
After being robbed twice within a year, including once at knifepoint, Jaime fled to the United States. Although he was 18 when he crossed the border, he was still eligible to receive the SIJ designation, since he had yet to reach his 21st birthday.
Advertisement
A juvenile court judge in Massachusetts agreed in 2024 that Jaime should stay in the US with a person who had given him guidance and support. The federal government then reviewed the state court's findings and approved his SIJ
Still, when authorities detained him this year, they claimed they had no choice but to hold him without bond because he had entered the country illegally years earlier — a stance that ICE now appears to be taking with regard to
The change reflects the Trump administration's push to hold more people in mandatory detention throughout their immigration court proceedings, rather than consider whether their release on bond would be safe and prudent.
Jaime left home at 14 and said his parents never called or visited him, even when they were in his city. 'I took care of myself the best I could,' he said.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Jaime said immigration agents first took him to a crowded ICE field office in Burlington — the
'They don't give you anything there,' he said.
Jaime then went to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility for four days, before being transferred to the federal prison in Berlin, N.H., which began housing ICE detainees
He winced as he recounted how prison staff strip-searched him upon his arrival.
'At that moment, a lot of things, a lot of ideas go through your head,' he said, 'like, 'Why am I here? What did I do?''
Advertisement
But he never got a clear understanding of why he was in the prison, let alone how long he would be there.
'No one tells you anything,' he said.
Days and weeks crawled by. Fellow detainees fell ill, he said. Contact with the outside world was restricted to
Seventy-five percent of the people in ICE custody at the Berlin prison in late June were noncriminal detainees, according to government data.
Jaime's lawyer pleaded with immigration judges to release him. But they refused. So she turned to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, which filed a petition in federal district court in Concord, N.H., to challenge his detention.
The government claimed it was
Immediately after issuing her decision verbally on July 7, McCafferty conducted Jaime's bond hearing herself. When the government presented no evidence that he was a flight risk or posed any danger to the public, she ordered his release on personal recognizance.
Williams wiped tears from her eyes as an interpreter relayed the ruling to Jaime, then she hugged her client and said she would drive him home to Massachusetts that evening and buy him a meal of his choice.
Advertisement
But he wasn't in the clear just yet.
After the judge and the government's attorney left the courtroom, two ICE contractors said they wouldn't release Jaime, as a supervisor on the phone said there may be criminal charges pending.
Meanwhile, a member of the US Marshals Service could be heard providing a physical description of Jaime to an unknown person on the phone, heightening concern that he could face further detention.
The mood in the room shifted from celebratory to confrontational.
Kasey A. Weiland, an assistant US attorney, returned to the courtroom and told the ICE contractors she was unaware of any criminal charges. She made multiple phone calls to resolve the tense situation she described as an apparent misunderstanding.
About 45 minutes after McCafferty issued her order and left, the courtroom was nearly silent. The stare-down continued. With ICE contractors on one side of the room, Marshals on the other, and half a dozen attorneys in between, Jaime waited quietly at the table where he had sat all afternoon.
Finally, an ICE contractor's phone rang and the directions came through: Jaime could leave.
His legal team escorted him outside and drove away without further incident.
A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons referred questions about Jaime's detention to ICE. Spokespeople for ICE, USCIS, and the US Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite his ordeal, Jaime said he remains eager to pursue his green card and, ultimately, his US citizenship.
Why?
'So what happened to me won't happen again,' he said.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Steven Porter can be reached at
