Overview

• A judge approved Alvaro Castro Velasquez’s request for voluntary departure during a virtual hearing, setting an Oct. 14 deadline to exit the United States.
• He has been held in an ICE facility in Texas since early June after being detained in Roosevelt, New York, days before his high school graduation.
• His attorney says voluntary departure spares him the typical 10-year reentry bar that follows a formal deportation.
• The lawyer is seeking a brief release so he can say goodbye in New York, though a direct transfer from Texas is described as more likely.
• Velasquez arrived as an unaccompanied minor in 2022 and enrolled at Roosevelt High School, where educators praised him and the superintendent was barred from handing him his diploma during a summer visit.