Overview

• Immigration Judge Maria Akalski denied Dylan Lopez Contreras’s asylum claim at a virtual hearing Tuesday and ordered him deported, while he remains held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania.
• His legal team at the New York Legal Assistance Group plans to appeal and seek bond, a process that would stay the deportation order during review, with 30 days to file.
• ICE arrested the 20-year-old at a routine immigration court appearance in Lower Manhattan on May 21, prompting protests and a City Hall amicus brief supporting his case.
• Attorneys say he entered under a Biden-era program, applied for asylum on time, and complied with all hearings, while the Department of Homeland Security asserts he entered illegally.
• Advocates point to reported complaints about conditions at Moshannon and to TRAC data showing Akalski’s unusually high asylum denial rate as signs of broader due-process concerns.