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Gov. Kathy Hochul demands return of 7-year-old NYC public school student grabbed by ICE in Trump crackdown

Cayla Bamberger, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday demanded the “immediate return” of a 7-year-old New York City public school student grabbed last week by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown.

Dayra, an Ecuadorian student at P.S. 89 The Jose Peralta School of Dreamers in Queens, and her mom Martha were separated from her 19-year-old brother during an immigration check-in Aug. 12 at 26 Federal Plaza. They were transported to a mega detention center near the U.S. southern border, while the teenage boy, Manuel, is being held in the Northeast.

In a written statement, Hochul pledged to work with the federal government to secure the borders and deport “violent criminals who pose a real threat,” and not families and students “contributing to society.”

“Ripping a mother from her children and detaining her 7-year-old daughter is cruel and unjust,” Hochul said in a statement. “It does not make anyone in New York or across the country safer.”

“Instead of preparing her daughter for school, this mother and her daughter have been separated from their family and sent to a facility in Texas. My Administration has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security demanding their immediate return to New York.”

On Friday, Martha’s partner, Patricio, told the Daily News that she feared deportation to Ecuador after fleeing domestic violence in the country. An immigration judge denied Martha’s asylum claim last year, but the family has so far been able to stay in the U.S. while attending regular appointments.

“We were all very scared,” he said in Spanish of last Tuesday’s check-in amid the Trump administration’s ramped-up deportation campaign. “Because we knew they were going to arrest them.”

DHS did not immediately return a request for comment. President Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations, focusing on the danger of immigrants with criminal records. But fewer than half of ICE’s immigration arrests in New York City have involved someone with a conviction or criminal history, according to the governor’s office.

 

Hochul has largely picked her battles with the president, serving as one of his most vocal critics on topics such as tariffs, congestion pricing and federal cuts, while finding common ground with the New York native on others.

Most recently, the governor made headlines on Friday for pardoning a middle-aged immigrant with a decades-old manslaughter conviction to stop his deportation.

On Monday, Hochul called on the federal government to improve conditions at 26 Federal Plaza’s impromptu jail, where advocates and immigration attorneys say detainees have been subject to overcrowding and lacked access to legal counsel.

“President Trump promised only to target the ‘worst of the worst,’ but ICE continues to target families, students and those contributing to society,” the governor said. “If a 7-year-old is who President Trump considers the ‘worst of the worst,’ then the promise was a lie from the start.”

The first day of school is Sept. 4.

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©2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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