On a humid August morning in Manhattan, the daily bustle at 26 Federal Plaza was interrupted by an event that has since sparked outrage across New York. Federal immigration agents detained a 7-year-old girl, her mother Martha Yolanda Lojano-Guallpa, and her 19-year-old brother as they attended what should have been a routine immigration check-in. The incident, which unfolded on August 18, 2025, has shone a harsh spotlight on the ongoing tensions between local leaders and federal immigration authorities, as well as the human cost of current enforcement policies.
According to statements from New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the family had arrived at the Manhattan immigration court for a standard appointment when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “detained all three of them on the spot.” The move, Hochul said, was both “cruel and unjust,” adding, “It does not make anyone in New York or across the country safer.” Her words echoed the sentiments of many city and state officials who have since rallied in support of the family and condemned the manner in which the detentions were carried out.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified Martha Yolanda Lojano-Guallpa as an Ecuadorian national. Federal officials said she unlawfully entered the United States with her children in December 2022. An immigration judge had already ordered their removal from the country, which set the stage for the events at Federal Plaza. While the mother’s name was released, the identities of her children were withheld by authorities for privacy reasons.
After their detention, Lojano-Guallpa and her young daughter were swiftly transferred to the Dilley Detention Center in southern Texas—a facility hundreds of miles from their home in New York. Meanwhile, the 19-year-old son was held at a detention center in New Jersey, leaving the family separated by both distance and uncertainty. Governor Hochul’s office confirmed that her administration had reached out to DHS, which oversees ICE, in an effort to bring the mother and daughter back to New York. But those efforts proved unsuccessful. By the evening of August 19, both the girl and her mother had been deported to Ecuador.
The impact of these events has reverberated throughout the Queens neighborhood where the family lived. The 7-year-old girl was a student at P.S. 89 in Elmhurst, a detail that has drawn particular attention from local leaders and education advocates. New York City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan and State Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, who both represent parts of Queens, said in a joint statement, “We are in contact with the family and their legal counsel, the Department of Education, and government agencies at every level to do everything in our power to reunite this family.” They noted that the separation of the girl and her mother from her brother was especially traumatic, and that the broader community was reeling from the loss.
Krishnan and Cruz later confirmed that the girl and her mother had been deported, underscoring the speed and finality with which federal authorities acted. According to city and state officials, this 7-year-old is the fourth known New York City public school student detained by immigration authorities in 2025. Krishnan said she is believed to be the first minor detained by ICE in the city this year—a distinction that has intensified the debate over federal immigration enforcement practices in New York.
The city’s education department, while declining to comment directly on the specifics of the case, stated that it connects detained immigrant families to legal and other support services with their permission. Education officials also encouraged families to continue sending their children to school, despite the uptick in federal immigration enforcement. The message from City Hall was clear: schools should remain safe spaces for all children, regardless of their immigration status.
The mayor’s office, led by Eric Adams, responded by filing an amicus brief in an ongoing lawsuit in the U.S. Southern District of New York. The lawsuit challenges what city officials described as the federal government’s “unlawful campaign of arresting and detaining people who show up to mandatory immigration proceedings.” In a statement, Mayor Adams said, “We should allow New Yorkers to feel secure to attend legal proceedings in their pursuit to obtain legal status.”
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also weighed in, condemning the detention of the family. “Children should be preparing for a new school year, not being ripped from their classrooms and communities,” she said. The sentiment was echoed by Krishnan and Cruz, who accused ICE of “utilizing our courts as a means to detain, bully and terrorize people who lawfully appear for their required check-ins and hearings.”
This incident is not isolated. As The New York Times and other outlets have reported, ICE agents have previously targeted individuals coming out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, especially during the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Just last week, local officials and community members rallied for the release of a 20-year-old public school student who was similarly detained by federal agents at the same building. That student, too, had been attending an immigration hearing. In recent months, two other immigrant high school students were also detained at immigration court, with only one of them subsequently released.
For many in New York, these cases have become emblematic of what they see as a broader pattern of aggressive federal enforcement that disproportionately impacts children and families. The fact that the 7-year-old girl attended a local public school, and that her detention occurred in the midst of preparations for the new academic year, has only heightened the sense of injustice felt by many city residents.
At the same time, the situation has exposed the limits of local and state power in the face of federal immigration policy. While Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams have both made clear their opposition to the detention and deportation of non-violent immigrants—especially children—the ultimate authority in such cases rests with federal agencies. Hochul herself acknowledged this reality, stating, “I have been clear: whether under President Biden or Donald Trump, I will work with the federal government to secure our borders and deport violent criminals who pose a real threat.” But, she insisted, “ripping a mother from her children and detaining her 7-year-old daughter is cruel and unjust.”
As the new school year approaches, the fate of families like Lojano-Guallpa’s hangs in the balance. For now, the story serves as a stark reminder of the complex, often painful realities that define America’s ongoing debate over immigration—and of the real people caught in the middle.
