Elissa Stiles, an immigration appeals attorney at Reaves Associates, describes how her team won a habeas corpus petition for a detained client one day after he lost his immigration court case. The federal judge ordered his immediate release, reuniting him with his family while the firm continues fighting for his immigration status.
Hello, my name is Elissa Stiles, and I'm an advanced litigation attorney here at Reaves Associates. I'm part of the advanced litigation and appeals team, so I spend my days working on appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal circuits, as well as fighting for our detained clients before the federal district courts and trying to get a writ of habeas corpus to let them out of detention. You can imagine I'm pretty busy these days. And I just had a great win that I'd love to tell you about. Recently, we had a client who had been detained for months, and we were fighting in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to try to get him out of detention. Before we got that writ, or final order, from the judge in the federal court, he had his immigration court trial and unfortunately lost at that point. The good news is, the next day, we were able to get a grant of his habeas corpus from the district federal judge, which meant he was released the same day, so he could go back to his family and be at home while we continue to fight his case and try to get him status here in the U.S.
