Rhinebeck Gardener Held More Than a Year in ICE Detention as His Town Fights to Free Him

Gerson Turcios, a 23-year-old Honduran landscaper with no criminal record, was handcuffed outside his home in Rhinebeck, New York, on July 18, 2025, after agents asked where he was from and photographed him. He had been ordered deported in absentia years earlier for missing a hearing he says he was never notified of, after COVID-era courts repeatedly changed locations. Turcios has since been moved among facilities in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana, and was pulled off a deportation flight to Honduras at the Alexandria Staging Facility only after attorneys won a stay of removal. His neighbors raised more than $130,000 from 1,121 donors, recruited habeas attorney Gregory Copeland of the Rapid Defense Network, and staged a student walkout; his lawyers now argue his prolonged detention is unlawful. He passed a full year in custody on July 18, 2026, and is held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.