Two brothers who live in the Newport News, Virginia, area are expected to be released — possibly Wednesday — after U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga granted them bond and ordered them released from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Farmville.
The two brothers, age 19 and 20, came to the U.S. from El Salvador under a special program for minors who entered this country after being abused, abandoned or neglected.
Sophia Gregg, the senior immigrant rights attorney at the ACLU of Virginia, said the two brothers were living legally in the U.S. until they were picked up and detained more than two months ago.
“They’re being held pursuant to the Trump administration’s new interpretation of immigration law, which seeks to subject all people who are apprehended in the interior of the United States to detention without bond. This is part of the government’s new policy and practice of trying to detain as many people as it possibly can in order to encourage deportation and self-deportation, and we find it to be unlawful,” Gregg said.
“It is completely arbitrary that these young brothers were arrested off the street simply because of the way that they look,” she added.
In August, they were picked up during an immigration sweep in Newport News and held in Farmville.
“They weren’t apprehended by ICE for any criminal behavior, and it’s clear that this administration is seeking to detain as many people as it can, simply to be cruel. Cruelty is the purpose here,” Gregg said.
The ACLU filed a federal class action lawsuit on their behalf in the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of them, and two others who had applied for or been granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.
Gregg said obtaining citizenship through that program can take years and they were on a path toward citizenship.
“Not that long ago, they graduated high school and are embarking on their adult lives,” she said. “They’re on a lawful pathway to permanent residency and then ultimately would become eligible for U.S. citizenship.”
On Nov. 5, Judge Trenga ruled that the plaintiffs have the right to a bond hearing. The brothers were ordered released from custody by an immigration judge on Monday, and Gregg says they should be free and back home Wednesday.
“They’re going to return to their family … and they’re going to return to their lives. They have jobs where they’re working, and they’re going to continue, hopefully, to adjust their status to be lawful permanent residents one day and continue with their lives, just like we all want to do,” she said.
President Donald Trump’s administration argued unsuccessfully that immigrants do not have constitutionally protected due process rights.
“Federal law says they have every legal right to be in the United States, and that ICE should never have put them in a detention center. Now they will finally be freed from detention and reunited with each other, ”ACLU-VA Legal Director Eden Heilman said in a statement.
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