Gerson Turcios didn’t recognise the men standing next to a couple of dark SUVs outside his house one July afternoon last year. He figured they were lost and approached to see if he could help. A slim 23-year-old with short dark hair and big brown eyes, Turcios had just finished work mowing lawns in the pretty town of Rhinebeck, in New York’s Hudson Valley. The men asked if he knew someone called Jimmy – he did, but Jimmy hadn’t lived in the small, white weatherboard house with Turcios, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend for a while.The men noted Turcios’s accent and asked where he was from. Turcios didn’t answer, so one took out his phone and snapped a photograph. The next thing Turcios knew, he was in handcuffs in the back of one of the SUVs and on his way to an ICE processing centre in Newburgh, New York, then on to a detention centre.Mass deportation has been the defining mission of Donald Trump’s second presidency. In the year since he took office, ICE – United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement – has deported nearly a quarter of a million people from inside the US (half a million including from its borders) as part of an immigration crackdown. These forceful apprehensions, which have in some cases resulted in fatal shootings of potential deportees and bystanders, have resulted in protests – and sparked international outrage. Behind the statistics, though, are stories of hope and perseverance; of young immigrants who risked everything crossing rivers and deserts to build lives, start businesses and put down roots in communities that are now fighting to keep them.Back then, as he was shackled and led to his cell, sure he was about to be deported back to Honduras, Turcios – an immigrant who had made a terrifying journey as a teenager, fleeing violence there – had no idea that his community in Rhinebeck was already mobilising; that they would raise tens of thousands of dollars in days, galvanise support from Hollywood actors and film-makers who also called the town home, and even recruit the lawyer who essentially wrote the book on stopping ICE deportations around the nation to represent him.I’d moved to Rhinebeck with my own family from Texas during the pandemic, drawn to the bucolic countryside and good schools. Our own daughter now walks the same high school hallways Turcios once did. For me, and a lot of other people who call this small town home, Turcios’s arrest was personal.Actor Griffin Dunne, who has raised awareness of Turcios’s case. Photograph: Celeste Sloman/The Guardian“Well, it’s happened,” wrote actor Griffin Dunne on Instagram. “ICE has come to my beloved Dutchess County and kidnapped a hard working kid with his own local lawn care business, and without a criminal record, off our tranquil streets.” But he added, “This is only the beginning.” Dunne, who has a home in Rhinebeck, told his followers that the community had started a war chest to defend Turcios. “Our pressure has brought about a hearing for Gerson at 11:00 tomorrow morning at Thurgood Marshall Courthouse for those who wish to show support. To my Rhinebeck neighbors, a bus will leave from Tops [grocery store] at 7:00 am.”Six years earlier, around 9pm on a freezing December night, Turcios and three other migrants had stood by the southern banks of the Rio Grande river in Mexico, looking across into Texas as flames torched the desert brush behind them; Mexican soldiers had set it alight to flush them out.With nowhere left to go, Turcios turned to the others. “We are right here,” he told them. “The other side is the United States.” Another boy checked that everyone was able to swim – they were – but all Gerson could think about was alligators, which had occasionally been known to inhabit the Rio Grande.Turcios before he fled to the US … Photograph: courtesy of Henoch Turcios… and celebrating his birthday with his brother Henoch in the US in 2021. Photograph: courtesy of Yorleny WeigelThe four boys jumped into the black water together, fighting the current as it pushed them downstream. Along that stretch, near McAllen, Texas, the width of the Rio Grande ranges from 45 to 90 meters. Finally, soaking wet, they scrambled up a concrete wall on the US side. They ran through scrubland until headlights appeared behind them, then three German shepherds. A heavier boy was dragged down by the dogs as he scaled a fence; the others scattered. Turcios sprinted until three cars boxed him in and US immigration officers emerged with guns drawn. “If you keep running,” they shouted, “we’re gonna shoot your legs.” Turcios stopped, put his hands up, then fell to his knees and felt a boot between his shoulder blades as they threw him to the ground and handcuffed him. He had spent six weeks on a journey that had nearly broken him. Against all odds, he had made it across the river. And now he’d been caught.In 2019, during the first Trump administration, an adult detained by Border Patrol crossing into the US was increasingly likely to be sent back to Mexico to wait for their immigration case to be heard. Turcios, though, was under 18, and the law dictated he be taken to refugee resettlement housing for minors. Turcios stayed at a facility in Long Island for almost a month until his brother, Henoch, and Henoch’s girlfriend, Yorleny Weigel, were allowed to pick him up and return to Weigel’s home in Rhinebeck.Henoch had come to the US in 2017 via a tortuous route, and Turcios hadn’t seen him for six years. Their first stop was a Wendy’s fast food joint for a burger – “So big,” Turcios now recalls, “I didn’t know how to eat it.”He would have to wait for the government to notify him of his first immigration hearing, but soon the Covid pandemic would throw the courts into chaos, with some hearings postponed indefinitely and others rescheduled then postponed again, leaving Turcios in limbo.Weigel showed Turcios his room, then drove him across the river to a big outlet store in the city of Kingston to buy clothes. He spoke no English, so Weigel registered him with a county language integration programme and with the local high school. In the summer of 2020, ahead of the start of the school year, he was introduced to Anna Lawson, who would be one of his classmates. Lawson was in advanced Spanish and, as Covid was still forcing people to meet virtually, they spoke regularly over Zoom. “He is a really lovely, positive person,” Lawson says. “He’d often be sitting outside, talking about how much he enjoyed Rhinebeck.”Brendan Dougherty, who shared a study hall with Turcios at school in Rhinebeck. Photograph: Celeste Sloman/The GuardianOn the first day of school, Turcios was afraid he’d be arrested by the police officer who sat outside in his car for an hour each morning as kids entered the building – just under half of US state schools have police patrol on campus – but after his first day, that fear passed. “After that I wasn’t afraid. I was excited,” he says. “But I didn’t speak any English at all.” Turcios immediately hit it off with his classmates. Brendan Dougherty shared a study hall with him. “Gerson is a very sociable guy, so it wasn’t difficult to strike up a conversation with him,” Dougherty says. “And his English progressed very quickly. Each day we’d go outside and play basketball.”Turcios finished high school in the early summer of 2022 and began working in the kitchen of a local French restaurant and, in his spare time, for a crew that did landscaping and house maintenance, and mowed lawns. One of his first clients was Jenny Friedberg, a creative director and producer who had moved up to Rhinebeck from the city during the pandemic. Turcios and the maintenance crew painted her basement in Brooklyn, and excavated 24in of bedrock under her barn in Rhinebeck. “Whatever they did, Gerson was always there,” Friedberg says. “He was the youngest of the crew, the smiliest, the most helpful, and my favourite.”In the summer of 2025, Turcios left the restaurant and went to work full-time with the crew. At 7.30pm on 18 July 2025, Friedberg’s phone rang. It was Carlos, Turcios’s boss. Turcios had been detained by ICE, he told her, and he didn’t know what to do.Friedberg made several calls that evening. The first was to Luciano Valdivia, a local restaurateur and president of Rhinebeck’s chamber of commerce. The next was to Amanda Miller, a local attorney. Then John Reinish, a political communications strategist she knew. Within 24 hours, they’d set up a Spotfund, an online fundraising platform, to raise money for Turcios’s legal battle. Miller called Gregory Copeland, a law school friend who had pioneered legal strategies to stop ICE deportations and had also moved to Rhinebeck.Jenny Friedberg, a creative director and producer for whom Turcios had worked. Photograph: Celeste Sloman/The GuardianCopeland was a nationally recognised civil rights and immigration attorney, and co-founder of the Rapid Defense Network, a non-profit providing pro bono legal support to immigrants facing deportation. He was also the subject of the documentary Guerrilla Habeas, which looked at the legal strategy it employed to stop deportations at the last moment. That strategy hinged on filing habeas corpus petitions, which empower federal judges to compel the authorities to justify detentions, a power enshrined in the constitution. Doing this forces cases out of immigration courts and into federal court, where due process can be properly considered and immigrants have a fairer shot at justice.Miller says Copeland had experience fighting “the biggest machine there is – the federal government”. But since his move to Rhinebeck, he had stopped practising civil rights and immigration law, and had turned his attention to estate planning for clients. Still, Miller knew there was no one better to help Turcios.“It wasn’t clear to me immediately that I would help him, but I went into triage mode, gathering information and figuring out what our options were,” Copeland says. As soon as Copeland got Turcios’s “A-Number” – the alien registration number assigned by the US Department of Homeland Security to non-citizens– he could check his status in the system. He discovered that, years earlier, Turcios had been ordered deported “in absentia” for missing a hearing. During Covid, courts repeatedly moved locations; Turcios missed a notice despite living at the same address he’d always provided.Copeland knew it was now vital to get the Rhinebeck community to show up for him. “If you consider what the government evaluates when justifying someone’s detention, it’s whether they’re a danger to the community and a flight risk,” Copeland says. “The community is typically not going to show up for a dangerous person. And you’re less of a flight risk if there’s a strong community around you.”It was a matter of urgency to identify where Turcios was being taken and where he was going next. Copeland says it’s not an exact science, but after working these cases as long as he had, you get a feel for it. A red flag was if he had been sent to Louisiana, a staging location for deportations – at this point, he had not. However, Turcios had been detained with his passport – another red flag. “[The government] needs two things to remove you: a travel document and a final order of removal,” Copeland says. “They need something to show who you are because in immigration court one of the first things they need to establish is that you’re not a citizen.” If an immigrant picked up by ICE doesn’t have a travel document on them, that buys their attorneys more time.Meanwhile, Valdivia asked Leah Conklin, another resident who worked in international criminal justice reform, to get involved. Within days of Turcios’s arrest, a crack team was coming together, but time was of the essence. “One of the reasons they make arrests on Friday, I think, is because you can’t catch up,” Valdivia says, “and if you don’t know where they’re going, you don’t know how to stop it.”Copeland was looking at the online detainee locator system, trying to get a feel for where Turcios was moving – through which processing centre; which detention centre. In New York state, if you are taken to Federal Plaza in Manhattan and then your location “goes dark”, that’s an indicator you could be bound for a deportation flight. “It’s very relevant for filing a habeas petition,” Copeland says, “because you have to file where they’re detained.” If you don’t know where your client is, you can’t file and they can be deported. “So it’s a game they’re playing – hiding the person.”Conklin had been calling around law firms but found it impossible to get a lawyer quickly enough. On Sunday, Copeland agreed to take on Turcios’s case himself. “I had created the Rapid Defense Network because there’s a small window in which you have to do this. It’s like a death penalty case: you have to strike while the iron’s hot or you’re dead.” By that evening, with Miller’s help, Copeland had filed an emergency petition on Turcios’s behalf, seeking a stay to allow him to consult with lawyers and challenge his removal order. Conklin says that the community came together in record time.Local residents who joined the fight included Luciano Valdivia, restaurateur and former president of the Rhinebeck chamber of commerce …… and Leah Conklin, who worked in international criminal justice reform. Photographs: Celeste Sloman/The GuardianValdivia messaged some other Rhinebeck residents he knew could amplify Turcios’s story. He called Dunne, the actor and writer who had starred in An American Werewolf in London and After Hours, and whom Valdivia counted as a friend. He texted film-maker Andrew Jarecki, who donated, as did actor Paul Rudd, who co-owns a sweet shop in Rhinebeck and lives there with his family. Word spread. Other contributions came in from all over the US and beyond.Dunne began posting about Turcios’s case on social media. “It was the first time I’ve ever used Instagram without kind of being embarrassed about self-promotion because I had a movie coming out,” he says. “It made sense to me for the first time. I was just struck by the inhumanity and the contagion of cruelty.”Friedberg says that when Turcios was arrested, she had a reckoning with herself: “This sort of recognition of how we don’t often know the people that have been working for us or near us for years.” She had never asked about Turcios’s story.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTurcios spent his early childhood in the small town of Balfate on Honduras’s northern coast. His father, Juan, raised cattle. Irma, his mother, gave birth to 10 children. The disappearance of his eldest brother, Amilcar, is one of Turcios’s earliest memories. He was four when his brother went missing after travelling by boat to Roatán, a Honduran island, to seek a better life. Of the five people who made the trip, authorities recovered the bodies of three. Amilcar and the boat’s captain were never found. Turcios’s family never learned th