For one western New York man, an ongoing 10-month stint in federal immigration detention began with a suburban ritual: browsing at a mall department store.

On a Saturday evening in February, JMA, as he’s identified in court filings, was looking at belts at a Macy’s in Cheektowaga, outside of Buffalo. A security guard accused him of trying to steal one of the belts; JMA replied that he was shopping and hoping to purchase it, according to a court petition his lawyers filed. The guard called the police, who took him to the station and charged him with petty larceny, a misdemeanor.

A Cheektowaga police officer told JMA, a Cuban citizen, that his supervisor said he had to “call Border Patrol for noncitizens,” according to the petition. JMA has a pending application for permanent residency under a special program for Cubans, but a Border Patrol agent arrested him anyway. JMA’s shoplifting charge was later dismissed, but he has been held in a federal immigration detention center in nearby Batavia since.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to resume reviewing protection requests from young immigrants who suffered abuse or neglect, finding it violated federal law when it abruptly stopped doing so earlier this year. But the longer-term future of the program — and of the thousands of young New Yorkers who benefit from it — remain uncertain.

The case concerns the Special Immigrant Juvenile status, a designation available to immigrants who have been abused or neglected by at least one parent and apply before turning 21. The designation opens a pathway to permanent residency, but there’s a tight limit on the visas available to SIJ recipients each year, and they often spend years in limbo. Under President Joe Biden’s administration, they were automatically considered for deferred action, which offers protection from deportation and potential work permits, while they waited to apply for a green card.

New York City Councilmember Susan Zhuang walks a peculiar political line. She’s a conservative Democrat — a member of the council’s Republican-dominated Common Sense Caucus. Sixty percent of voters in her south Brooklyn district backed Donald Trump last year. In this month’s mayoral race, Andrew Cuomo — whom she endorsed in the primary — carried the district by a 20-point margin over winner Zohran Mamdani.