IC Student advocates for her friend who was detained by ICE

While doing homework at a friend’s house, Ithaca College senior Kristyn Sales received a message saying her longtime friend of 8 years was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Manny Othatz was born in Uruguay but was brought to the United States when he was a child. He graduated from Dover High School, New Jersey in 2016. Othatz and Sales became friends quickly.

Manny Orthatz, Photo by Orthatz GoFundMe page

“When I first met him I thought he was witty and perceptive because he was always down to learn and educate,” Sales said.

Othatz was was detained by ICE on Sept. 12, 2018. He created a GoFundMe page to help fund his immigrant detention and deportation defence. On the page, he explained that he excelled academically in high school and participated in the school’s soccer team.

“Manny was a great student, throughout high school, all four year he took AP courses that he was hoping to get college credit for to take to college with him,” said Sales.

New Jersey has the fifth highest population of immigrants in the country. According to the Migration Policy Institute, in 2016, the population size came to two million immigrants.

Dover, New Jersey alone has a large percent of Hispanic or Latino population. The data from the U.S. Census Bureau states that Dover has 70.6 percent of Hispanic or Latino residents.

Courtesy of the Migration Policy Institute

College was always a goal for Orthatz and he was planning to attend with the help of his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, however that dream was taken away when he was arrested for a minor drug offence.

“He was paying it off for a conditional discharge which means basically in the state of New Jersey if you get caught with a minor drug offence you can after a year of probation and a court order drug test…[the offence] will be discharged from your record in a year. It wasn’t [for Orthatz] and he ended up missing a payment and he had a warrant out for his arrest immediately after missing the payment with no grace period,” said Sales.

Shortly after missing his payment, Orthatz was the passenger in a minor car accident. He panicked when the officer asked for his name, fearing for his legal status. Orthatz gave the officer a fake name, but the officer recognized him and arrested him for his minor drug offence. Orthatz, was bailed out and as he was leaving the Municipal court of Denville, New Jersey, ICE picked him up.

Before ICE detained Orthatz, he was planning to attend college.

“When Manny was in the process of trying to apply for college, he was informed because of his DACA status being removed due to prior interactions with the police as a minor, he basically wasn’t able to go to college. He didn't have the money and he couldn't receive federal aid, so that kind of ended a dream for him,” said Sales.

Sales talked about the difficulty of watching her friend be deprived of an education that he worked and strived for in high school. The two are still in touch and talk often.

“We’d always talk about school, he would always ask me a lot of questions about what I’m learning. He’s always very curious and I don’t know it always makes me feel guilty sometimes talking about how much fun I’m having here or what I’m studying when I know that he can be doing great things and studying really hard,” said Sales.

Sales strives to educate her peers about immigration and is continuing to tell the story of Orthatz, but most importantly she wants people to know that, “no human is illegal.”