In Texas, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last week readied a flight for detainees being deported to Iran.
A court order from U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo in Buffalo kept Arzou Hami off the plane.
In a different case, Vilardo last month ordered the release of Oliver Eloy Mata Velasquez from the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility. ICE had taken the 19-year-old asylum-seeker from Venezuela – whom the judge said “followed all the rules” – into custody outside an immigration court in Buffalo.
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And in another case, Vilardo granted a temporary restraining order forbidding the removal of Yarwuin Madris Olivo, before the Venezuelan man’s lawyer could even verify his whereabouts for days after his arrest.
Though federal law limits the jurisdiction and powers of U.S. district judges in immigration cases, Vilardo in recent months has raised concerns about the government’s crackdown.
“Let’s talk about the arrest at the courthouse,” Vilardo said at Mata Velasquez’s federal court hearing. “I mean, look, it’s awful. But what can I do about it?”
In at least four recent cases, he has quickly issued restraining orders upon being assigned to them as he fleshes out the details.
And he has also put the government on notice.
“Being taken away like this without any notice to anyone as to why, as a student of history, scares the hell out of me,” Vilardo said at Madris Olivo’s hearing in June.
“There are due process rights in this country, and if we start letting those rights be ignored for folks who we think are noncitizens and subject to deportation, we put all of us at risk,” Vilardo added. “And that is scary stuff.”
During the court hearing, Vilardo told an assistant U.S. attorney to send a message to the immigration agencies the attorney represents: “It’s just not acceptable” to deprive people of their due process rights.
“I will do everything in my power as a federal judge to stop that sort of stuff from happening,” Vilardo said. “And if that includes sanctions against folks at ICE and Customs and Border Protection, that will include sanctions. Enough said.”
An immigrant considered a threat to public safety and national security waits to be processed by ICE agents in June 2022 in Los Angeles.
Quitting the court fight
Not everybody stays the course in federal court when challenging detention. Several detainees who filed petitions for release so far this year withdrew them, even early in the court process, after deciding to leave the country without a further fight.
“It’s the arbitrariness and the indefinite nature of the detention that is getting to people and causing them to throw in the towel when they have viable claims,” said attorney Daniel E. Jackson, who handles habeas corpus cases for those challenging their detention by the government.
Claudio Guaman-Alvarado was arrested outside Immigration Court on June 3, despite complying with all the conditions of his previous release order, Jackson said.
In a court filing voluntarily dropping Guaman-Alvarado’s habeas corpus claim, Jackson said Guaman-Alvarado still feared for his life upon returning to Ecuador, given the murder of his brother by a gang.
“But he has come to the conclusion that he no longer feels able, mentally or physically, to withstand immigration detention any longer,” Jackson said in the filing.
Jackson attached an email from an immigration advocate for Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, who dealt with Guaman-Alvarado, relaying “he lost all hope” about his asylum prospects and that he was suffering from significant gastrointestinal issues that have been exacerbated while detained in Batavia.
The fear of prolonged detention also appears to have played a role in Anderson Contreras Hernandez, 20, quitting his federal case. His detention was among the more unusual ones – he was in Oishei Children’s Hospital from complications of his sickle cell disease.
ICE intended to take custody of him upon his discharge from the hospital.
The Venezuelan man requested asylum when he approached border officials in Brownsville, Texas, in January 2024. He was released on humanitarian parole, and he moved to Buffalo after living in New York City for three months.
In June, Cheektowaga police arrested him on a charge of shoplifting and he was given an appearance ticket. He suffered a health crisis when Customs and Border Protection agents took him into custody, and he went to the hospital.
A couple of weeks ago, his lawyers filed for voluntary dismissal. A government filing said lawyers were working to stipulate an order of removal, with the hope he would be removed within a week or two. ICE’s online detainee locator system no longer shows him in custody.
Misunderstanding can also play a role in abandoning the federal cases.
When Jeremy Torrealba Llorente’s Immigration Court hearing ended last month in Buffalo, the Venezuelan man expected to walk out of the courtroom, given that he had been free on his own recognizance since entering the United States a year and a half ago.
Instead, the 22-year-old man was grabbed by federal agents and sent to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia. His lawyer sought a federal court order to temporarily block a potential deportation.
Three weeks later at Immigration Court – not the federal court handling his habeas corpus case – the Venezuelan man asked to depart the United States voluntarily. The government agreed. As of Friday, he was at a Texas detention facility, scheduled to depart within a week.
Jackson, his lawyer in the habeas corpus case, did not represent him in the immigration case.
“I believe he had a strong claim for outright release, because his arrest and detention were unconstitutional,” Jackson said. “I was unable to go with him to Immigration Court. I advised him in the strongest possible terms to continue with his existing asylum claim, because I believed there was a fair chance of getting back to the status quo, with him in removal proceedings, but also released.
“But what I have been told is that, as a young kid, he was scared and that his understanding was that if he did not agree to be deported, he’d spend the next 10 years in prison.”
Those who are deported from the United States may face a 10-year ban on re-entry – but not 10 years in prison.
“Unfortunately, this young man has now waived all of his rights to present his claim based on an apparent misunderstanding,” Jackson said.
Shifting jurisdiction
Whether Vilardo has jurisdiction to keep ICE from putting Hami on a flight to Iran remains an open question.
Jurisdiction can be a thorny issue, as Hami’s lawyer discovered at a hearing Wednesday.
ICE’s detainee locator system indicated she was being held at the Niagara County Jail in Lockport when her lawyer filed a petition seeking her release from federal custody on July 4.
But ICE officials said she was moved to Texas on July 3.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Khalil said in a court filing that her petition should be handled by a judge in Texas – not Buffalo.
The stakes are high for Hami, who fled Iran in the early 1990s. Though ordered deported decades ago, immigration officials released her and she had checked in with ICE periodically and followed the conditions of her release during her years living in New York State. But in June, she was arrested by ICE and detained, according to a court filing from her lawyer Matthew K. Borowski. She’s a convert to Christianity, and she fears returning to Iran, where she could face persecution, Borowski said.
She also has mental health issues, and has been prescribed medication for her bipolar and schizophrenia conditions.
Vilardo ordered lawyers on both sides to file further written briefs.
Borowski has suggested “an element of possible bad faith” by the government.
“ICE has lately been strategically moving detained individuals from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in a manner that appears calculated to make retention of counsel in the mounting of a legal defense virtually impossible,” Borowski told the judge. “Should this court find that it lacks jurisdiction and decide to transfer the matter to the Southern District of Texas, it will be very difficult for (Hami) to have legal representation.”
Historically, detainees have had a hard time finding legal counsel to represent them in South Texas, he said.
“Competent counsel must often be found in larger cities such as San Antonio, and the cost for them to handle matters in remote areas like South Texas can be astronomical,” Borowski said.
Government officials have said detainees have been moved from Western New York to detention facilities in other states because of lack of space locally.
Although a transfer of venue may cause her inconvenience, that is not reason enough to deny the government’s motion to move the case to Texas, Khalil told Vilardo.
Patrick Lakamp can be reached at plakamp@buffnews.com
