The mother of a Bronx High School student who was detained in May by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is calling his detention inhumane.

Dylan Contreras was arrested by federal agents on May 21 in the lobby of a Manhattan courthouse after attending a mandatory immigration hearing regarding his immigration status. Contreras, a 20-year-old from Venezuela is being held in a Pennsylvania detention center.

"It's inhumane to go against people and deprive them of their liberty without reason or cause to justify bad behavior. Many of those deprived are students, hardworking mothers and fathers in search of a better future and stability, helping to forge a country with our effort and sacrifice, giving the best to a homeland that gave us shelter since we are orphans of our land," his mother, Raiza wrote in a statement released on behalf of the New York Legal Assistance Group.

The Department of Homeland Security says Contreras entered the country illegally in April 2024 under a Biden administration program. The Humanitarian Parole program that granted temporary legal status was revoked by DHS in March.

Nearly a month later, his attorney says an immigration judge is now reconsidering Contreras' asylum case, due to the government failing to properly explain the consequences of what would happen after his case was dismissed, ultimately NYLAG says that led to his immediate arrest.

“He is now back in regular immigration proceedings, not in expedited removal, but despite that the government has refused to let him out even though there is no reason to detain him, usually people are only detained if they are a danger to the community or a flight risk and no one has ever argued that Dylan is either of those things," said Kate Fetrow, attorney for NYLAG's special litigation unit.

Contreras is a student at Ellis Prep. Academy, and a main provider for his mother and young siblings.

"My son is losing months of his life in prison simply because he wasn't born in this nation... because he didn't even want to enter without authorization and he waited for his appointment to be admitted," his mother wrote.

Fetrow says they are fighting for Contreras to be released from detention.

"We've seen reports not just at the facility where Dylan is, but from across the country of inadequate food, inadequate air conditioning or heating, bed bugs, lack of access to medical care, overcrowding. Immigration detention conditions are abhorrent throughout the country. And that's particularly true now where more and more people are being grabbed off the street and put into those types of detention facilities," said Fetrow.