Judge orders release of man who spent 8 weeks in ICE custody

A Venezuelan man taken into custody by federal authorities during an Oct. 15 raid at a west Eugene apartment complex must be freed immediately from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, a U.S. district judge ordered Wednesday, Dec. 10.

The man, 46 at the time of his detention, was not being held on any criminal charges.

His attorneys argued in a court filing he was “swept up” when FBI agents executed a search warrant at an apartment in the Woodland Creek apartment complex, with ICE officers present during the raid.

A recent court filing on his behalf alleged the man had gone over 24 hours without being fed while in ICE detention and while being transported from Tacoma to Eugene for an evidentiary hearing Nov. 14.

Senior U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken previously ordered the man, identified by the initials “H.L.” during the hearing, to appear in person for that hearing. The man and a neighbor testified to dispute an assertion made by ICE officials that he had changed addresses without permission from authorities, thus leading to his detention.

Aiken had set a Dec. 5 deadline for the federal government to state its legal basis for the man’s detention. Her five-page order Wednesday said the federal government’s reasoning did not apply to someone like “H.L.” who arrived in the United States in 2024.

In their Dec. 5 filing, federal attorneys had said only that the man arrived in the United States without valid entry documents and was thus “subject to mandatory detention” under federal immigration law.

Aiken said the law they cited applies only to those “seeking admission,” not someone like “H.L.” already in the United States, who can be detained but only under a separate section of the law.

Aiken’s order stated the federal attorneys’ Dec. 5 “clarification substantially simplifies the Court’s analysis and renders much of the evidence and argument submitted in this case superfluous,” and she cited other judicial decisions similar to her Wednesday ruling.

Aiken’s order said nothing about “H.L.” not being fed, but according to The Oregonian, Aiken had, on Monday, spoken out against a different detainee who had not eaten. In that case, a 22-year-old woman in ICE detention testified she had not been fed after being roused at 2 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. court appearance in Eugene, the paper reported. Aiken then stopped the hearing and ordered that the woman be fed before continuing to testify, according to The Oregonian.

Evidentiary hearing

The petition seeking his release stated “H.L.” fled Venezuela because he opposed an authoritarian government and faced reprisals, and that “[o]n information and belief” he has no criminal history.

In court documents, an ICE official said the search warrant sought “to locate firearms being unlawfully possessed by an alien at such location.” However, no arrests on criminal charges have been announced.

ICE officials argued in court documents they detained the man based on evidence of an address change from one unit to another in the apartment complex. ICE officers previously warned the man in February that changing residences without permission from immigration authorities would result in his detention, according to court documents.

At the Nov. 14 evidentiary hearing, the man testified on his own behalf with the help of a Spanish interpreter after arriving from an ICE detention facility in Tacoma.

The man said he lives at an address on file with ICE and not at the apartment unit where the raid took place, disputing that he had changed addresses. At the time of the raid, he had been visiting friends, he said.

“I would visit frequently, because we would coordinate to make dishes from our country, to see movies or on many other occasions to play Playstation” video games, the man testified at the hearing.

He said he lived with family members at a different apartment, paying $500 as his share of the monthly rent. He said he did not pay rent for any other apartment nor have keys to any other apartment.

The man testified that he worked as a ride-share driver, and that he had fallen asleep on a couch at the apartment where the early morning raid took place.

Rob Easton and Christine Zeller-Powell, attorneys with Catholic Community Services of Lane County, filed the petition seeking the man’s release that Aiken reviewed before issuing her order.

Case made by ICE

Patrick Conti, an assistant United States attorney, argued that evidence existed that “H.L.” had moved, thus leading to his detention.

“The ICE officer in this case reached a rational determination that H.L. had changed his residence after he had already been warned not to do so without prior written approval,” Conti said at the hearing.

Conti stated there was evidence that “H.L.” slept “repeatedly” at the apartment where the raid took place, and that the man had also received mail at the address where the raid took place.

“And it’s on that basis the determination was made” to detain “H.L.,” Conti said.

Other testimony

A neighbor also testified at the Nov. 14 hearing, stating that the man resides at the address where he claims to live, not the apartment unit where the raid took place.

“I see him coming and going, and we speak,” testified the woman, who said she’s the man’s next-door neighbor. She told the court they use their phones to translate between Spanish and English.

Her neighbor is “very polite,” she said. “I have zero complaints,” she added.

Katrina Kilgren, a Eugene immigration attorney, also testified at the Nov. 14 hearing, stating that she has frequently helped her clients keep their addresses up to date with ICE authorities and ask permission to change residences.

“Currently, ICE is being more strict with that, but that is only in the last few months,” said Kilgren.

Kilgren told the court the Venezuelan man is a client, but at the evidentiary hearing she spoke as a witness. She testified the man came to the United States through the CBP One app, which she testified was an initiative under former President Joe Biden.

“It was a way that people who were coming [to the U.S.] with an intent to exercise their rights under U.S. and international law to seek asylum could ask for permission for an appointment at a port of entry,” Kilgren testified.

Court documents filed in advance of the evidentiary hearing described the man as having “long opposed the authoritarian government” in Venezuela. Only his initials and not his name are specified in the recent court filings because of a “retaliatory physical harm risk,” court documents state, with Aiken allowing the proceedings to continue without the man’s full name being used.

The asylum application process is for those seeking protection in the United States because they fear persecution in their home countries, and court documents state the man has a hearing set for March 2027.

In Tacoma

Video provided to Lookout Eugene-Springfield showed multiple people taken into custody in the early morning raid, and the man testified that three men were detained with him from the apartment where the raid took place.

While initially they all were detained at an ICE facility in Tacoma, he said they had since been transferred to other facilities.

One of the other men taken into custody is a relative of his wife, he said, and the man has been transferred to a detention facility in Mississippi.

The man said his wife continues to live in Venezuela.

In a court document titled “Notice of Changed Detention Conditions and Deprivation of Food During Transportation to November 14, 2025, Hearing” filed after the hearing on Nov. 19, attorneys stated that the man had not been fed “for an approximate period of 26 hours,” from dinner Nov. 13 until arriving back in Tacoma after the evidentiary hearing at about 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14.

Upon returning to the Tacoma facility the man’s security treatment had been “recategorized” so that he was being held with detainees who have committed crimes, the court document stated.

According to the court filing, he asked about the change and was told “that ICE had reported to them that he is a gang member.” Previously, he’d been categorized within the facility as having no criminal history, the court filing states.