U.S. detains immigrant for a month without charges under contested policy
The petition, the first of its type filed by ACLU-HI, alleges Juan Jose Estrada Lopez's detention without charges or bond is unlawful. Habeas corpus ensures that no person - citizen or not - can be held by the government without the right to challenge their detention before a judge.
A habeas petition is a legal action that asks the court to release a person from unlawful detention.
The respondents to the petition are: Michael Smith, warden of FDC Honolulu; Polly Kaiser, acting field director of the Immigration and Customs field office in San Francisco, which has jurisdiction and supervision over Honolulu immigration activities; Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for Estrada Lopez's detention; and Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.
According to the ACLU, Estrada Lopez came to the U.S. from Nicaragua in 2022 without proper documentation and moved to Hawaii shortly afterward to work at an unnamed coffee farm - where he met and married his wife, who is a U.S. citizen.
Estrada Lopez has no criminal history, according to the ACLU, which said he was taken into federal custody during an application interview for a green card in August.
"They were going through the legal immigration process, which is a very standard petition for a spouse," Leilani Stacy, ACLU-HI immigration rights attorney, told the Tribune-Herald on Wednesday. "They thought it was going to be very routine questions about their marriage and that sort of thing. And then he was ripped away. What happens is the couple was separated in that interview, so they were in separate rooms.
"And then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Estrada was not reunited with her husband after that, and Juan was taken into custody and sent to FDC."
Stacy said that a Homeland Security and Department of Justice policy adopted in July declared that noncitizens who enter the U.S. without inspection are categorically subject to mandatory detention and ineligible to seek release on bond.
"He committed no crime, is being detained for the pure reason that he entered without inspection - and any immigration violation is a civil violation," Stacy said. "He has no criminal history but is being locked up in the same facility that people who are being charged with federal crimes are. And I would say this is pretty typical in the sense that this is a new policy that the federal administration is taking, that's different from every administration prior to that for decades, red and blue.
"Previously, these sorts of folks were not subject to mandatory detention, but this new policy means that anyone who's locked up doesn't have a chance for a hearing before the immigration court to decide whether they should be let out, whether they're a flight risk or a danger to the community. The new policy is that you're locked up, regardless. And so, unfortunately, Mr. Estrada Lopez's case is not unique or unusual. It's quite common right now, and I think, increasingly common in Hawaii, even though we may not be seeing the same volumes that we are on the continent."
Estrada Lopez's wife, Emily Estrada, said in a statement that her husband's "unexpected detention at our green card interview has turned our lives completely upside down."
"What we thought was just a routine step in our immigration process has become the most difficult five months of our lives," she said. "Juan defines himself by his ability to provide, and losing that has been devastating.
"He's suffering mentally, emotionally and physically, like any human being would."
The ACLU's petition states they have been married since March 2, 2024.
According to Stacy, there are about 80 individuals locked up in Honolulu FDC for immigration issues similar to Estrada Lopez's.
"His case is very similar to ... thousands of cases of individuals who have been detained under this administration across the country," she said. "And while it might not be as frequent here in Hawaii, we've seen the numbers of detentions and arrests skyrocket proportionally here in Hawaii in the past year."
Stacy said no court date has been set to hear Estrada Lopez's petition.
"For us, this is urgent. Every day that the court doesn't act is a day extra that Mr. Estrada Lopez is detained unlawfully," she said. "The thing is, here in Hawaii, only a few other habeas petitions have been filed. There's just not a lot of attorneys here who know how to file these petitions, and immigration practitioners right now are super slammed, and they're not always part of federal court although they practice in immigration court. So, this is a really big step for us at the ACLU of Hawaii to share that we're committing new resources to that area and trying to fill a gap of need in our community."
The ACLU said more than 300 judges nationwide have declared the government's new detention policy to be contrary to immigration law and the U.S. Constitution, but the vast majority of those in detention have not been able to get bond hearings - including Estrada Lopez.
"There is a class-action that was executed in California that is binding - and yet, the government is refusing to comply with that, instead leaving people like Mr. Estrada Lopez in detention with the only recourse to file these petitions one by one," Stacy said. "People can be locked up for months. It's really hard because you're obviously not working, since you're being locked up like you are a criminal, which is not the case here.
"This poses a threat here to our community in Hawaii that values diversity, that, historically, is made up of a variety of different immigrants. So, I think it's important to our office that we're holding our government accountable, especially for folks who are noncitizens but are going through the legal immigration process."
Wookie Kim, ACLU-HI legal director, called the case a "first step" in its effort "to strengthen our work defending immigrants and their families."
"No one in our islands should fear that engaging with the legal immigration process will result in indefinite detention without a hearing," Kim said. "We are in this fight for the long haul."
