This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.
NEW YORK STATE · September 4, 2025
New Yorkers are suing to reverse a Trump administration policy change that has upended the futures of tens of thousands of young immigrants.
By Isabelle Taft , New York Focus
Carlos Guerra Leon, 18, left his home in Rockland County’s Spring Valley around 6:30 am on August 9, planning to arrive for his shift at a local carwash a little early. Instead, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him over not far from his house and sent him to a detention center in Louisiana, citing an order for his deportation from when he was 12 years old.
His mother, Daysi Guerra Leon, had thought he was safe: The federal government had granted him Special Immigrant Juvenile status, or SIJ, a protection for immigrant children who have been abused or neglected by at least one parent. The designation came with protection from deportation to Guatemala, a work permit, and the promise of eventual legal residency in the United States.
“In my mind, it was me they were going to deport, and they would stay here,” Daysi said in Spanish, referring to Guerra Leon and his 14-year-old sister, who was also approved for SIJ. “I wasn’t afraid for him. It never crossed my mind that he could be detained.”
Now, Daysi’s son is more than a thousand miles away, and thousands of young immigrants in New York like him are at risk.
Guerra Leon’s detention is the result of an effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to limit the protections offered by SIJ. The administration’s policies have outsized effects on New York, which is home to more than a fifth of all SIJ petitioners — more than any other state.
People with the status get in line for legal permanent residency, waiting years for their turn to apply. Under President Joe Biden, those caught in the SIJ backlog were considered for what’s known as deferred action, an administrative status that protected them from deportation and allowed them to apply for work permits. The Trump administration stopped granting deferred action to SIJ recipients earlier this year — and started arresting some who, like Guerra Leon, already had it.
A group of young people with SIJ, including five New Yorkers, filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration over the end of the deferred action policy. On Thursday, a judge in New York’s Eastern District will hear their arguments that the policy change violated federal law. The administration counters that the change is part of shifting enforcement priorities that aren’t subject to judicial review.
“It never crossed my mind that he could be detained.”
—Daysi Guerra Leon
Advocates hope the judge will require the Trump administration to reinstate the deferred action process and resume reviewing work permit applications from people with SIJ status.
Until then, SIJ status holders who thought they would be protected remain vulnerable to arrest by ICE, which is currently detaining more people than at any point in its existence.
It’s not clear how many other people with SIJ have been detained. Earlier this summer, a 20-year-old Suffolk County Community College student with the status was deported to Colombia, Newsday reported.
Guerra Leon’s attorney, Stefany Ovalles, who has practiced immigration law for a decade, said she had never before seen a client with an approved SIJ petition and no criminal record taken into custody. She is not sure she’ll be able to stop his deportation to Guatemala.
“It feels a little bit like they’re targeting youth who very much have a pathway to citizenship,” she said.
Congress created the Special Immigrant Juvenile status in 1990. To qualify, an immigrant younger than 21 years old must petition a state court to find that they can’t reunite with one or both parents because of abuse, abandonment, or neglect. The petitioner then submits an application for SIJ status to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. If approved, they’re eligible to apply for a green card, which grants them legal permanent residency in the US.
There’s a catch, however: A tight limit on the number of visas available to SIJ recipients leaves people with approved petitions waiting years for their turn to apply for permanent residency. In 2023, more than 100,000 young people were stuck in line, according to a report by the national End the SIJS Backlog Coalition.
New York was home to nearly a fifth of those on the waitlist, the coalition found — a reflection of the state’s recent immigration history. In the mid-2010s, large numbers of teenagers from Central America migrated alone to the US, where they often joined friends or relatives already living on Long Island. Under Biden, minors were among the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and other immigrants who traveled to New York City; some were eligible to apply for SIJ.
Robust legal services and favorable family court rules also contribute to the high number of SIJ petitions from New York. People residing in the state can start the application process before they turn 21, whereas in other states they must apply before they turn 18.
The Biden administration’s deferred action policy meant that approved SIJ petitioners were protected from deportation and could apply for work permits while waiting. The Trump administration formally ended that in June. Now, young people whom courts have deemed vulnerable face the threat of arrest and deportation.
“It feels a little bit like they’re targeting youth who very much have a pathway to citizenship.”
—Stefany Ovalles, immigration attorney
The change is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to curb deportation protections that have benefited young people. Officials have aggressively targeted the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which protects more than half a million people brought to the US as children — arguing that it doesn’t confer legal status and encouraging recipients to “self-deport.”
The first Trump administration tried to limit the benefits of SIJ, too. In 2018, USCIS stopped approving SIJ petitions from people who applied after they turned 18 but before they turned 21. A federal court required the administration to reverse course.
Since then, the pace of SIJ petitions has increased dramatically, from about 20,000 in 2018 to nearly 70,000 in 2024. The Trump administration has framed that increase as an indication of abuse of the law.
In late July, USCIS issued a report claiming SIJ posed “national security threats.” More than 300,000 SIJ petitions were filed from 2013 through earlier this year, and USCIS identified 853 “known or suspected gang members” among the petitioners, according to the report.
The report echoes rhetoric from Trump and administration officials casting Latin American immigrants broadly — and often with little evidence — as members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.
“We recently closed a loophole set up by the previous administration that was used by dangerous criminal aliens to gain automatic access to deferred action and employment authorization via the SIJ program,” USCIS spokesperson Matthew J. Tragesser wrote in a statement to New York Focus.
Theo Liebmann, a law professor at Hofstra University who runs a legal clinic for immigrant youth, said the actual numbers in the report point to a different reality.
“One could look at that and much more easily come to the conclusion of, ‘This is an amazing program that’s helping an overwhelmingly law-abiding group of young people who’ve overcome trauma and are seeking to be productive in our country now,’” he said.
New Yorkers like 21-year-old Alex Lai are now trying to prepare for an uncertain future.
Lai came to New York City from Hong Kong as a 17-year-old to study nursing on a student visa. Not long after he arrived, his parents divorced and told him they would no longer support him financially. Lai moved in with a cousin on Staten Island and together they consulted an immigration attorney, who told him he was eligible for SIJ.
USCIS approved his petition in 2023, and he was able to get a work permit while waiting for his visa. He’s now working as an EMT in New York City.
Lai first learned of the end of deferred action by chance as he scrolled the USCIS website, trying to find out if he was any closer to his turn to apply for a green card. When he saw that he was vulnerable to deportation, he felt “frozen,” he said.
He emailed President Trump and got back a form response touting the One Big Beautiful Bill. He also contacted his congressperson, Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, whose office gave him a call. “Since you’re an EMT, you should be fine, they’re probably not going to target you,” Lai recalled the staffer saying. Malliotakis’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Not reassured, he’s trying to work as much as possible to save money while he can. If the Trump administration prevails, his work permit will expire in 2027.
“Worst case scenario, I’m going to get deported,” he said.
“They took away my future.”
—Carlos Leon Guerra
New York advocates and officials are trying to prevent that. After Thursday’s hearing, a judge could order the administration to reinstate the deferred action policy — though Guerra Leon’s arrest shows that even recipients of deferred action can be detained.
New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services, which houses some SIJ petitioners who live in foster care, has pleaded with USCIS to restore deferred action. Without the ability to work, the city claimed in a public comment, young people awaiting legal permanent residency could be at risk of becoming homeless or being trafficked as they age into adulthood. (The city agency did not answer a question about how many people with approved SIJ petitions are in foster care.)
In Spring Valley, Daysi has spent the past month cleaning houses and praying that her son will return. She brings her daughter to work with her, not wanting the girl to stay home alone, missing her brother.
It had always been “us three against the world,” she said.
Guerra Leon graduated from Spring Valley High School this year. In a brief interview from the Louisiana detention center where he has been held for nearly a month, he said he had wanted to keep studying to become a paramedic.
“They also took away my future,” he said.