ICE Holds Gerson Turcios for 1 Year as Rhinebeck Raises $130,000 to Fight Deportation
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 9
ICE Holds Gerson Turcios for 1 Year as Rhinebeck Raises $130,000 to Fight Deportation
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 9
Summary
1 year after ICE detained him outside his Rhinebeck home, 24-year-old Gerson Turcios remains jailed in Brooklyn while his lawyers challenge his continued custody and pursue asylum.
An in-absentia removal order triggered the case after Turcios missed a hearing during Covid-era court disruptions, and attorney Gregory Copeland argues ICE should have released him by October under detention limits.
Turcios was nearly deported from a Louisiana staging facility last August, but an emergency legal stay pulled him off a Honduras-bound flight moments before departure.
Rhinebeck residents turned his case into a sustained campaign, raising more than $130,000 from 1,121 donors, drawing support from actors including Griffin Dunne and Paul Rudd, and staging student walkouts.
The case has become a local symbol of Trump’s mass-deportation drive, which has removed nearly 250,000 people from inside the US in the past year.