ILAP’s Statement on the Detention of Lewiston Teenager Jose Adalberto Herrera

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 18, 2025
CONTACT: press@ilapmaine.org

Sue Roche, Executive Director at the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project said: “ILAP condemns the Trump administration’s detention of 17-year-old Jose Adalberto Herrera of Lewiston, Maine and calls for his immediate release back to his family. As Maine’s only statewide immigration legal services organization that has been assisting Maine’s immigrant communities for over three decades, ILAP can say with authority that detaining an unaccompanied minor who had previously been detained and reunited with family is extremely unusual, if not unprecedented.  

The detention of Jose Adalberto Herrera, like other cases across the country, makes clear that the Trump administration’s rhetoric that it is prioritizing people who pose a threat to society is patently false. The administration is targeting immigrant families and communities broadly, and its depraved xenophobic agenda does not exempt children. This is family separation in another form.  

There is absolutely no legitimate public policy reason to tear children away from their families and place them in detention centers so that they can be deported as rapidly as possible. It is cruel, inhumane, completely unnecessary, and flies in the face of family unity and child protection which should be at the heart of our immigration system.”

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