An 18-year-old Guatemalan teenager decided to self-deport from the United States after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, a few weeks before his high school graduation in Long Island, New York.

The young man, identified as Alvaro Velasquez, arrived in the country in 2022 from Guatemala, where he lost his mother and maintains little contact with his father. He had settled in Roosevelt, where he was pursuing his studies and expected to receive his diploma in June, according to local network WABC. However, weeks before the ceremony, he was arrested by federal agents and transferred to a detention center in Texas. During a virtual hearing, Velasquez agreed to self-deport, claiming to be "frustrated" and "exhausted by the isolation," according to his attorney, Pallvi Babbar. He has no criminal record. Babbar emphasized that her client has no criminal record and had obtained deferred action after entering the country illegally. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong; he was just coming back from the supermarket with his tutor,” said the lawyer, who expressed concern for the young man’s future in Guatemala, where he has no close relatives.

In a statement to Newsweek, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin defended the arrest, noting that Velasquez entered illegally through the southern border in 2022 and was released under the Biden administration’s “catch and release” policy. She also asserted that the current administration seeks to restore “the rule of law” in immigration matters.

For their part, Velasquez’s teachers and classmates lamented his departure. Jessica Harrison, a social studies teacher at Roosevelt High School,She described him as "the student every teacher would dream of having." According to his school colleagues, the teenager was well-liked and committed to his academics. Velasquez will now return to Guatemala, although his lawyer hopes he can temporarily return to New York to say goodbye to his friends, family, and teachers. The case symbolizes the human impact of immigration policies, which continue to divide opinions in American society.