Immigration attorney Lorena Rivas explains habeas petitions, federal lawsuits that ask a U.S. district court to order ICE to release detainees or allow bond applications. A recent Board of Immigration Appeals decision bars immigration judges from granting bonds to people who entered without inspection, making habeas petitions the only path to release.
Hi, Attorney Lorena Rivas here. I wanted to talk to you about what is a habeas petition, and many of you have probably heard of this because this is the way we are able to get somebody from an immigration detention center out. In the last few weeks, month, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a decision saying that anybody who entered into the United States illegally, or EWI, without inspection, was not eligible for an immigration bond. So immigration judges can no longer issue these bonds, which was crazy and problematic because For decades, immigration judges have been able to choose whether somebody can be let out on an immigration bond. Anyway, so this turned everything topsy-turvy, making that the only way this individual who is detained, who may be entered into the country without inspection, be released is by filing a federal lawsuit against immigration, alleging that you are holding our person against their right. This is what's called a habeas petition, and literally in Latin it means body, which means like release the body. So in a habeas petition, you file a lawsuit in federal federal court where you are asking the federal judge to order immigration to either liberate the person or to give them the opportunity to apply for an immigration bond. Now, the habeas petition is a federal lawsuit, and it's different and apart from the immigration court case that's going. The removal case is where the person who's detained has to allege why they're able to remain here in the United States, what forms of defense or applications for relief, are they available? That's separate from the federal case, the habeas case, and it's also separate from an immigration bond case. So immigration judge, when they have a bond hearing, that's separate from the removal case. So many times these whole things are going at the same time and you need them to go at the same time because you need these, your client to, or your person to be released from custody. So it's kind of complicated, but that's the way you have to do it now if somebody entered without inspection. A habeas petition.
