ICE detainees voice their stories in court

At the border, no one listened.

A transgender woman from Mexico, Roxanne spoke in a Eugene courtroom about crossing the Texas border into the United States in January 2024, seeking “protection.” 

“I fled my home because of discrimination: I was suffering physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence,” she said under oath Aug. 8, 2025.

Testifying before a judge, Roxanne said, gave her a chance to describe her experience. Her version of events differed from information presented in court documents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“When I went before the judge, I felt that this was my only chance to speak and tell the truth,” Roxanne, 32, said in a recent interview, speaking with Lookout Eugene-Springfield on the condition her full name not be used.

At stake in the Aug. 8 court hearing was her release from an ICE detention center. By that time, she had already spent a month in detention, a difficult experience for Roxanne. She said she put on a brave face, but was “falling apart on the inside.”

Ultimately, Roxanne and her attorneys successfully argued for her release, as has happened in roughly a dozen other Oregon cases involving immigrants who found themselves detained by ICE in Lane County. 

Roxanne testified as part of the proceedings for what are known as habeas corpus petitions. Commonly called habeas petitions, they challenge whether someone is being lawfully detained. For migrants, the petitions do not aim to resolve a person’s immigration status but instead question whether being kept in ICE custody is legally justified.

Transcripts and court documents from habeas cases provide a window into the stories of those detained, and highlight judges’ criticisms of actions taken by ICE officers in Lane County. 

For example, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai described a conversation between an ICE officer and a 19-year-old disabled detainee in Eugene as “coercive conduct” that led the migrant to sign a voluntary deportation order. 

Court documents and transcripts do not identify the detainee by name. But his testimony before a judge helped ensure the deportation order would not be enforced.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken, who ruled to free Roxanne, found her testimony “credible.” In contrast, she wrote that “several” written statements by ICE “might, with charity, be described as serious inaccuracies.”

The number of habeas cases has risen across the United States. A database published May 13 by Politico found judges ruling against detention roughly 90% of the time.

In a few of those cases, attorneys argued for changes in how ICE officers enforce immigration laws, including a major case in Oregon that resulted in a judge’s order limiting warrantless arrests.

Despite a string of court defeats, government attorneys fight on in Oregon, with appeals filed in recent weeks seeking to overturn the warrantless arrest case as well as another that freed a Eugene man picked up during a November traffic stop.

Government attorneys argue the detentions fall within ICE’s established authority.

The cases spotlight how legal arguments surrounding immigration enforcement in President Donald Trump’s second term shape tactics used by ICE in Lane County.

Roxanne’s case and that of the 19-year-old disabled detainee date back several months. But as recently as last week Chief U.S. District Judge Michael McShane expressed alarm at ICE actions throughout the Oregon federal judicial district, which includes the entire state.

In finding the March 10 detention of a 23-year-old man in Eugene unjustified, McShane wrote: “This risk of unjustified detention is being replicated in untold instances of discretionary enforcement of our immigration system within this District and is intolerable.”

Lane County crackdown

The habeas cases have surged along with a nationwide crackdown on immigration.

“We are in a place of, essentially, everyone who does not have authorization to be in the United States is at risk of being arrested and detained,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said of the Trump administration’s immigration stance in his second term.

It’s a shift from policies under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, former Democratic presidents, when immigration enforcement priorities were “people who had criminal histories and people who posed national security threats, as well as recent border crossers,” Bush-Joseph said. 

The interpretation of a 1996 immigration law on mandatory detention also differs from Trump’s first term, as government attorneys now argue a mandatory detention law applies to undocumented residents who may have been living in the United States for years.

ICE officers ramped up Lane County street enforcement last fall, with two days — Nov. 5 and Nov. 19 — seeing 10 or more arrests.

Of those detained Nov. 5, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said two men had criminal records for driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Lookout could verify a criminal history for only one of the two named detainees.

There have not been any recent reports of days with double-digit arrests in Lane County. But detentions continue to occur for immigrants arriving at the Eugene Federal Building for scheduled appointments.

Last June, local immigration attorneys began to see a surge in detentions at the downtown ICE office.

Under previous presidential administrations, there generally would not be detentions at such check-ins, barring a law enforcement arrest or new criminal charge filed against the immigrant since their last appointment, Bush-Joseph said.

“Detentions at check-ins have happened [in the past], but what has changed is the scale of the arrests at check-ins under this administration,” she said, with “many more people” being detained.

Habeas cases

The number of detentions in Lane County has been much larger than the number of detainees who go on to file habeas petitions.

Habeas petitions don’t resolve a detainee’s immigration status; that usually happens in immigration court, where a judge decides on such matters as asylum applications, for example. Asylum is for those fearing persecution in their home countries. 

Another path to release from ICE detention is via bond hearings, hotly contested by the Trump administration, which has won legal victories bolstering its efforts to detain immigrants without bond.

Here, the nonprofit Catholic Community Services of Lane County has filed the most habeas petitions. But they aren’t easy to file.

In Oregon, “These filings have to be completed and submitted very quickly, in a matter of hours or less, before ICE can race the person across the state line” to the detention center in Tacoma, Washington, Christine Zeller-Powell said Feb. 24 while introducing Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield for a League of Women Voters speaking event.

Zeller-Powell, director of Catholic Community Services’s Refugee and Immigrant Services Program, explained to Lookout that a habeas petition can be filed on behalf of a detainee from Washington.

But “because there are no overnight detention facilities in Oregon, if the habeas is filed quickly in Oregon and the judge issues an order saying don’t remove the person from the judicial district (the state of Oregon), then the person is released the same day they were detained and is free/at liberty/not detained while the habeas case proceeds,” Zeller-Powell said in an email. “That freedom is obviously a great benefit to the individual involved.”

Also, Oregon has a state-funded universal legal representation program known as Equity Corps of Oregon. The program has provided attorneys for many immigrants detained by ICE in the state, including Roxanne.

A court case over attorney access for people detained in Oregon continues, with advocates saying that, in practice, attorneys have been denied access to detainees at ICE field offices in Eugene and Portland.

At the February event, Zeller-Powell said that “all 12 Oregonians that we filed for have now been released.”

She clarified in a later email to Lookout that at that time, the total included some habeas petitions filed in Washington. However, details of those cases, such as the petition document and any government response, are not open to the public in Oregon.

More generally, the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group, said last October habeas petitions are “inaccessible to most,” given that the process “involves complex procedural and legal steps, and about 80% of people in detention do not have lawyers to help them.”

Reasons for detention

Federal attorneys have cited pending criminal charges in two separate cases as reasons to detain two people recently at ICE check-in appointments in Eugene.

A 25-year-old Guatemalan woman detained Jan. 16 has a felony criminal mistreatment case pending in Marion County.

In the second case, a 23-year-old Colombian man detained March 10 has been charged in Linn County with assault, a felony domestic violence charge because the victim was pregnant, federal attorneys said in a court filing.

Court records show both released pending the outcome of their habeas petitions.

The Guatemalan woman claims persecution in her home country because of her indigenous Mam ethnicity. Her daughter is at risk of being targeted for violence in Guatemala because her former partner is a gang member, according to her written statement. Attorneys argue that evidence shows the woman “is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.”

For the Colombian man — an asylum seeker targeted for politically motivated violence in his home country — the person he’s accused of assaulting filed a victim statement saying she does not fear him and that the arrest “does not represent who [he] is as a person or father,” according to his attorneys.

McShane ruled Thursday, May 14, to grant the Colombian man’s petition. In his ruling, which called unjustified ICE detentions “intolerable,” McShane acknowledged the government’s argument but called for a hearing in immigration court before detention with “adequate notice” if ICE officials seek to detain him again for the same reasons.

Though ICE officials “justify Petitioner’s detention based on his recent state arrest, their justification does not eliminate Petitioner’s due process rights,” McShane wrote.

He also rejected the interpretation of 1996 immigration law cited in recent months by government attorneys to expand the scope of detentions. They argue the phrase in the law “seeking admission” gives ICE legal authority to detain noncitizens in the country as if they had just entered the country.

McShane wrote that “because Petitioner was detained within the United States, far from the border, multiple years after he physically entered the country, Petitioner was not ‘seeking admission’ when he was detained.”

Despite those cases, most reasons for detention given in the dozen or so habeas cases reviewed by Lookout have not involved allegations of criminal activity.

This was especially evident for detentions in 2025 during the surge in immigration enforcement in Lane County, at least in cases with habeas petitions.

For example, in the case involving the 19-year-old disabled detainee, the judge, Kasubhai, asked Department of Homeland Security attorney Benjamin Hickman, “Is there a flight risk or a danger to the community?”

“There is no — no evidence of that whatsoever,” Hickman said.

Father and son detained

The 19-year-old, identified in court documents as S-M-J, was detained along with his 57-year-old father, identified as J-M-L, after arriving Aug. 12, 2025, at the Eugene Federal Building for an administrative check-in. They were kept in ICE custody and taken to Tacoma.

Habeas petitions describe the Linn County family’s path into the United States:

In 2019, the son and father arrived from Guatemala, though details of the trip weren’t disclosed. S-M-J has a disability limiting his walking ability. The petition stated his limbs did not form properly.

In Guatemala, the two were harassed and threatened by criminals after reporting illegal activity, and because of their Indigenous heritage and S-M-J’s disability. 

The family lived in Lebanon, 45 miles north of Eugene, and the son is a graduate of “an American high school,” and “his English is becoming proficient,” court records say.

In court, S-M-J disputed an account provided by an ICE officer about an interview at the Eugene field office.

While the father and son entered the United States in 2019, the father previously entered on “multiple occasions” without authorization. This meant that, since 2007, the father was considered “subject to a final order of removal.”

A supervising ICE officer, in a written statement, said S-M-J, while in Eugene, was given two options: receive a new notice to appear for future immigration court proceedings or agree to a voluntary departure.

If migrants agree to voluntary departure, they agree to return to their home country, but avoid having a formal deportation order on their record. This can be helpful if they plan to reenter the United States, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center.

In the written statement, the ICE officer wrote that agreeing to a voluntary departure “would ensure [S-M-J] has no removal order on his record and could remain with” his father.

“[S-M-J] and J-M-L discussed how to proceed and, ultimately, [S-M-J] decided that he wanted to return to Guatemala with J-M-L and accepted an administrative voluntary departure,” the ICE officer said.

The ICE officer also wrote that S-M-J “speaks fluent English.”

However, in court testimony, S-M-J, through an interpreter, described the ICE officer as wanting him to sign an order for voluntary deportation. 

“I told him that I didn’t want to sign it, that I wanted to see my attorney first,” S-M-J testified in court. He said the officer had been speaking “very calmly” until the refusal, then “got mad at me.”

“When I told him that I didn’t want to sign it and to call my attorney, he said that this wasn’t court,” S-M-J said.

The ICE agent told him that his father was going to be deported.

“He said that my father could no longer be here anymore,” S-M-J testified. “And I depend emotionally on my father, and so he said that if I signed it nothing would happen to me.”

He signed.

“So were you being threatened that you would be separated from your father?” S-M-J was asked months later at the court hearing.

“Yes,” he answered, adding that the officer “told me that if I didn’t sign it, he was going to send me to jail.”

‘Coercive conduct’

Kasubhai cited the interview — and what he called “ICE agents’ coercive conduct towards S-M-J” — as factors in his decision to release the father and son.

The younger detainee’s testimony “undermines the credibility” of the decisions made by ICE agents, the judge wrote in his opinion.

When Kasubhai noted S-M-J testified under oath “about being put under duress and in essence intimidated” into signing the voluntary removal order, Hickman, the government’s attorney, clarified the government would not try to enforce the signed voluntary deportation document.

Hickman also had argued the law gives ICE officers “complete discretion” to detain migrants like S-M-J and J-M-L.

In its case, ICE argued that in 2019, Department of Homeland Security policy did not allow the separation of a minor child from an adult parent, and it was a lack of open detention beds that allowed father and son to avoid detention at the border.

“Son is now not a minor, so there’s been a change,” Hickman said.

Kasubhai said the “purported reason” given by Hickman for detention — that S-M-J was no longer a minor — “does not sound credible,” also finding a lack of evidence about who signed off on documents revoking the release of father and son.

Transgender woman detained

As with S-M-J, Roxanne, the transgender woman from Mexico, testified in a Eugene courtroom to oppose a version of events presented by ICE.

In court filings, the Oregon U.S. attorney’s office stated that in January 2024, Roxanne — identified by initials in the documents — “did not express fear of returning to Mexico” after being confronted by federal Department of Homeland Security personnel at the border near Laredo, Texas. She was granted a “voluntary return” to her home country, the government said.

Roxanne disputed that account. In court, she testified she told officers at the border that “I wanted to be given an opportunity to request asylum.”

Instead, the “officer just verbally — was verbally abusive to me, and he said that he was very busy and would have a deportation order for me,” Roxanne testified.

In an interview with Lookout, Roxanne described that two-day experience at the border: isolation in a room without a toilet and pleas to use a bathroom that were ignored.

“I wrote … I was fleeing my country because I feared for my life,” Roxanne said.

She was given a computer tablet, but couldn’t understand what to do because it was in English. She said she was “practically forced” to sign the voluntary order.

Back in Mexico, she was held at gunpoint as armed men affiliated with a criminal cartel asked for her family’s information and demanded $1,000 for her safety. After that, Roxanne said she once more crossed the border without authorization. 

Again, she was returned to Mexico. It took a third try — and arrest on a criminal trespass charge — before authorities released her into the United States based on her fear of persecution.

Roxanne’s criminal charge was later dismissed, said Katrina Kilgren, a Eugene immigration attorney who sat with Roxanne during the interview with Lookout.

“I almost wanted to cry because of everything they were saying about me and everything they had said about me at the border without really knowing what happened,” Roxanne told Lookout about her habeas case.

Because of her expedited removal at the border, Roxanne is not eligible for asylum. Instead, she is seeking protection in the United States based on a different section of immigration law that, unlike asylum, does not provide a path to legal residency. She is also seeking protection based on human rights protections against torture, Kilgren said.

In detention

Aiken, the federal judge, in a 35-page August 2025 order, described a lack of due process for Roxanne in her detention.

The judge found “shifting justifications” from ICE, with Roxanne first being told there was a significant likelihood she would be deported, then later told her detention was based on moving without ICE permission.

ICE’s actions after detaining Roxanne “bear the hallmarks of post-hoc decisionmaking” as officials “presented multiple inconsistent or factually unsupported explanations for doing so,” Aiken wrote.

Before she was released from custody, Roxanne spent about six weeks in ICE’s Tacoma detention site.

“I arrived there, they processed me, and sent me to an area, but they never told me why they detained me, they never gave me a reason,” until the filing of her habeas petition, Roxanne said.

In Eugene, she told an ICE officer she moved. But officers did not refer to the move in placing her in detention, saying only that a deportation order had been filed against her. 

It was only after weeks in detention that a supervisor asked where she had been living. 

Roxanne explained she hired a person to help with immigration paperwork and to contact ICE, and she had told that person about her address change.

“And then he says to me, ‘OK, in short, you hired someone to handle your relocation, and they scammed you.’ I said ‘Yes,’” Roxanne said. “He said OK, and then he said, ‘Look, I’m going to tell you something. Even if you win your case, you’re not going to stay here.’ He said, “Because this president doesn’t want you here.’”

She was housed with men and described harassment from a detainee who rummaged through her clothing, including her underclothes.

Other detainees from non-Latin American countries frequently called her names and slurs based on her identity. 

“The officers knew all of this and they never wanted to do anything,” Roxanne said.

However, after about a month in custody, Roxanne said the detainees became friends.

Roxanne said she was reprimanded for touching the hand of a sick detainee and moved next to an officer’s post, where she frequently overheard detainees’ phone conversations – “all their problems,” she said — and couldn’t sleep.

She described seeing frequent fights among detainees and between detainees and guards.

Illness spread widely among the detainees.

“We all had a fever, we all had the flu. Many couldn’t even get out of bed. They spent the entire day just lying there,” Roxanne said.

Detainees could request to see a doctor, only to be told they were put on a waiting list that could take two weeks, Roxanne said.

She had doctor visits to check her blood pressure, which she said was elevated since arriving in Tacoma. But “there were not medicines for anything — absolutely nothing.” Detainees would gargle with salt and water to try to soothe their pain.

Roxanne said she felt an “intense desperation” and a kind of “suicidal delirium.”

Others have raised questions about the conditions at the Tacoma facility. An April 28 news release from Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson cited more than 3,500 complaints from detainees and announced a lawsuit asking a court to open the facility to state health inspectors.

In a statement to Lookout, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said detainees receive medical, dental and mental health screening within 12 hours of their arrival and, within 14 days, a full health assessment.

“During initial screenings, the facility’s medical personnel review medications individuals bring with them for continuity and provide urgent and life-sustaining medications immediately,” the spokesperson said, adding that detainees have 24-hour emergency care available.  

In case of an outbreak of illness, “ICE Health Service Corps immediately takes steps to quarantine and control further spread and infection, ceasing all movement within the facility and quarantining all individuals suspected of making contact with the infected,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added: “Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.”

Ferguson’s news release stated that, since 2024, two detainees have died and six others have attempted suicide. The DHS spokesperson described two deaths in 2024 from natural causes.

“Suicides in DHS custody are tragic and rare,” the spokesperson said, stating that ICE “requires annual suicide prevention training, enforces 15-minute checks on suicide watch, and ensures that only clinicians — not custody staff — can remove someone from suicide watch.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, a Democrat who represents the congressional district that includes Eugene, said Hoyle’s office asked ICE officials in Tacoma about the housing of transgender detainees.

“We were told that they try to do what’s safest for the detainee,” Ella Seaman, a press assistant for Hoyle, said in an email.

Roxanne said phone calls with family and her attorneys helped her endure her detention.

“For family of someone detained, the best way to fight is to make sure you don’t allow someone to think they are alone. In reality, many people in detention have no one, no way to contact family,” she said.

With no one on the outside to speak with, many detainees heard officials telling them they could be kept for months on end indefinitely and had no way to win release.

Fearing continued detention, some would sign documents agreeing to be deported, Roxanne said.

Her case brought hope to others, she said.

“Well, when I got out, everyone told me: ‘Now we understand that we’ve been lied to. We’ve been lied to all along, and your case has given us hope to keep fighting, because we know that it is possible to get out — yes, it is possible to get out — and we know that it is possible to keep fighting from the outside,’” Roxanne said.

But even since being released, her anxiety remains. She fears being detained again.

“When I’m going to the store, I walk towards the store, and I feel like I’m being followed, like at any moment they’re going to catch me,” she said.