The case of a 7-year-old detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sparked indignation across New York City. The child, however, is not the first New York youth caught up in President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant dragnet.

The Intercept has confirmed the identity of a 15-year-old Manhattan high school student deported to Ecuador after a secretive detention that involved days trapped inside hotels hundreds of miles away, while unable to contact the outside world.

The teen, Roger Iza, and his father, Edison Iza, were arrested by ICE at a check-in in New York on August 9 and, after being whisked to hotels in Louisiana then Texas, deported to Ecuador on August 14, the pair said by phone from Quito.

“We couldn’t call or go on the web to ask for help,” Roger said. “Without our phones, we didn’t know any names or phone numbers.”

“We couldn’t call or go on the web to ask for help.”

ICE’s latest published data, from June and July, indicates that 48 minors were arrested in New York City, some counties north of the city, and parts of Long Island during those months, and 32 of them had been deported by last week. But who those children are is frequently shrouded in mystery. Roger Iza’s is the first account from a minor deportee to emerge from the Trump administration’s crackdown on New York City.

Detention centers operated by ICE allow unlimited phone calls to anyone with the money to pay for them or make collect calls; they also allow for attorney calls. The case of the 7-year-old and her mother has been highly publicized and garnered efforts by immigration activists, political leaders, and school administrators to keep her in the U.S.

Roger, however, was not in a detention center where it would have been relatively easy to communicate with the outside world. He was locked up with his father in a private hotel, with no ability to use the internet or phone to get attention........

© The Intercept