Christopher Peak Photo
Cross students hear an update about Mario Aguilar’s asylum claims at a Thursday morning assembly.
A New Haven high-schooler will be stuck in federal detention for at least another week, after an immigration judge held off on issuing a decision that could lead to his deportation.
Mario Aguilar Castañon, an 18-year-old student at Wilbur Cross High School, is seeking asylum, a special form of protection for people who’ve faced persecution in their home countries, after fleeing from gangs in his native Guatemala that threatened his life. His lawyers had argued Aguilar felt targeted specifically as an indigenous Mayan, an ethnic minority in the country.
The judge said he wasn’t ready to decide the case yet, according to Cross’s assistant principal, Ann Brillante, who was in Boston for Thursday morning’s court hearing. She sent that news in a text message, read to nearly 500 students awaiting news in the high school’s auditorium.
“We dd not get a ‘yes’ and we did not get a ‘no,’” Kris Mendoza, who teaches English for speakers of other languages, read aloud from Brillante. “It could be a week or it could be longer. Typically for people in detention, the lawyers are saying it could be about a week.”
Dalia Fuleihan, Aguilar’s attorney, did not respond to a phone call and text message on Thursday morning.
Aguilar has been in federal detention in a Massachusetts prison for three months. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Aguilar in September outside the Milford courthouse, where he had shown up to dispute state charges related to a traffic accident. The immigration judge denied his request to post bond.
Brillante said that Aguilar’s lawyers have appealed that denial and feel “confident” they’ll win. If they do, she added, a new bond hearing could take place within the next several weeks.
Vanesa Suarez explains how policing is tied up with immigration enforcement.
On Thursday morning, hundreds of high-schoolers went to an hour-long assembly to hear about Aguilar’s case and how it fit into a wider context of the criminal justice system.
Students from Cross in Action talked about why and how they got involved in immigration activism. Vanesa Suarez, an organizer with Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance, talked about how contact with police can lead to deportation. And students asked questions about how the immigration proceeding would go.
Can they use his his arrest on drunk-driving charges against him, even if the police didn’t give him a breathalyzer? a student asked.
They shouldn’t be able to, but they are, Suarez said.
What are his chance of staying in the country? a student asked.
It’s not easy to win an asylum case right now, Suarez said.
What can we do for Mario? a student asked.
You’ve already done so much, Suarez said, but the courts still need to hear that there’s people in New Haven who care about him, who won’t let him be thrown away.
Principal Edith Johnson.
Edith Johnson, Cross’s principal, said that she agreed to hold the first-ever assembly on Aguilar’s case to have a space where students could think critically about the country’s immigration policies, especially in a school that has so many students from across the globe.
Cross students have sent in hundreds of letters and fundraised more than a thousand dollars. They organized rallies across the region: in front of New Haven’s city hall, Milford’s courthouse and Boston’s federal building. And their activism made national news on CNN.
Anthony Barroso talks with students from Cross in Action about their next steps.
“Youth have power, and we believe you can make a change,” Anthony Barroso, an organizer with Connecticut Students for a Dream, told them. “It’s not the news we wanted to hear. It shows that the system does not care about us.” He added, “We will not stop fighting until Mario is free.”
Students closed out the rally by fanning across the stage and leading a chant. “No justice, no peace!” hundreds of them yelled. “We want Mario released!”