Mayor Eric Adams is supporting a 16-year-old Bronx high schooler nabbed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the city formally filing papers backing his lawsuit seeking to halt his deportation. 

The teen, Joel Camas, was arrested during a routine immigration check on Oct. 23, and faces being sent back to Ecuador where he fled threats from violent gangs in 2022, according to documents filed in Manhattan federal court.

The Adams administration argued Camas, as a teenage public school student, should have a right to “access city schools and services while their immigration issues are being resolved,” according to the brief filed in his support Monday.

Adams, in a statement, called Camas “a hard-working student, dedicated to his school work and future, who followed the proper immigration process.”

“We are proud to support his petition for justice, just like we have done with the many other New York City Public School students who have been detained during routine immigration proceedings,” the outgoing mayor said.

Camas has been held at an Office of Refugee Resettlement youth shelter in The Bronx since his arrest, according to news outlet THE CITY.

The city argues that there is no danger in keeping Camas detained, instead of deporting him, since he poses neither a flight nor a safety risk, according to the city’s top attorney, Muriel Goode-Trufant.

“The Trump administration has not met the very high bar for detaining this minor student who is better served remaining in the community with his family,” Goode-Trufant said. 

But the feds are dead-set on deporting Camas, arguing they are more than happy to reunite him with his mom back in Ecuador.

US Attorney for the Southern District Jay Clayton also asked the judge to keep the teen detained pending his trial.

Camas arrived from Ecuador in Dec. 2022 with his mother — who self-deported earlier this year, entrusting her son to relatives with the hope he could find a better life, according to the teen’s lawsuit.

The two have had an order of removal against them since losing their asylum case in 2024, where they appeared without legal representation, the suit states.

A junior at Gotham Collaborative High School in The Bronx, Camas has a perfect attendance record, the city’s supportive amicus brief states.

His teachers describe him as a “committed” student who is so driven to learn English, “that he refuses materials in his native language,” the filing states.

Roughly 50 minors under the age of 18 have been detained by ICE in the New York City area since Trump took office, according to The New York Times, which first reported Camas’ case.