NYC rally demands release of detained student Mamadou Mouctar Diallo

NEW YORK - A Brooklyn high school student has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), marking the third arrest of a New York City public school student by immigration authorities in recent months.

What we know:

Mamadu Maktar Diallo, 20, is an asylum seeker from Guinea enrolled at Brooklyn Frontiers High School. 

Officials say he was taken to a Pennsylvania detention center on Aug. 4 after an immigration hearing at Federal Plaza in Manhattan. 

"While he was enrolled in high school, he was working, he had roommates, he was following the rules," City Council member Rita Joseph says. 

City Council member Lincoln Restler called the arrest a "scary and unacceptable escalation" in ICE’s targeting of asylum seekers and students. The city’s Project Open Arms team is helping Diallo’s family with legal support, and an online petition for his release has gathered more than 1,100 signatures.

Advocates say Diallo was in the process of applying for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, which could allow him to remain in the U.S. "This is someone who was following the process and has multiple pathways of relief ahead of him," President and CEO of the New York Immigration of Coalition, Murad Awawdeh says.  "We believe his detention is unlawful and unjust, and he should be released to continue his immigration case and exercise his right to due process."

The Department of Homeland Security provided this statement to FOX 5 NY: 

"Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, an illegal alien from Guinea, crossed the southern border illegally as part of a caravan of 51 other illegal aliens apprehended by CBP on January 13, 2024. Diallo was released into our country by the Biden administration. ICE arrested him on August 4, 2025. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings."