Tempe student in ICE detention emotionally distressed, lawmaker says

A Tempe student and his mother have experienced emotional distress after they were placed in an ICE detention facility in Texas, according to a Democratic lawmaker from Arizona who is fighting for their release.

Dilan Maney Paredes, 14, has been held at the Dilley detention center south of San Antonio for nearly three weeks after he was taken there in May with his mother, Margoth Del Pilar Paredes-Ortiz, following her arrest by federal immigration authorities.

Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, said he spoke with the teen’s mother June 10 by phone and she told him both have experienced emotional distress but she was more concerned about her son.

Stanton said he personally visited the Dilley detention center on May 26 and he described the facility as a collection of trailers in the middle of fields where families in ICE custody are held in “prison-like” conditions.

“She just said he’s regularly crying and obviously he’s very upset that he was detained the day before his graduation and that he had been looking forward to celebrating that important day in his life with classmates,” Stanton said.

Dilan was a student at Cecil Shamley Elementary School when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers brought his mother to the school to pick him up the day before his eighth-grade promotion ceremony after she had been arrested by ICE officers, advocates and ICE officials have said.

Stanton said he is demanding that Dilan and his mother, as his caretaker, be released by Monday, June 15, under the Flores Settlement, a federal court agreement that generally limits the government from holding migrant children in immigration detention for more than 20 days.

Monday marks the 20th day Dilan and his mother have been held at the Dilley detention center in south Texas, Stanton said.

“It is the law and so we’re demanding that they follow the law, and release Margoth and Dylan on Monday, let him come back and hopefully we can have some kind of graduation for this kid that missed out on that special moment in his life,” Stanton said.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ICE officers arrested Paredes-Ortiz, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, on May 26 following a referral from the U.S. Border Patrol after her vehicle failed to yield as a “suspected alien smuggling load vehicle,” ICE officials previously said.

Paredes-Ortiz was subject to a removal order issued by an immigration judge on March 19, 2025, ICE officials said.

Paredes-Ortiz was taken to the ICE Phoenix field office, where she requested that her juvenile son, also an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador with a final order of removal, be returned with her to Ecuador, ICE officials have said.

She said her son was in class at Shamley School and that no other family members were available to care for him or bring him to the ICE field office, ICE officials said.

Paredes-Ortiz voluntarily called the school and asked that her son be released so he could meet her while she was in ICE custody, ICE officials said.

After he made a formal congressional inquiry, Stanton said he received information from ICE on June 12 that Paredes-Ortiz has an appeal of the removal order pending with the Board of Immigration Appeals and there is no immediate action to deport her.

Stanton said ICE told him the original order of removal was issued because she missed a court date in immigration court. Stanton said her appeal is based on whether Paredes-Ortiz received adequate notice of the court date.

“Obviously, her son is a minor, so under Flores, he should be released, and she’s the caretaker, so she should be released as well,” Stanton said.