Federal judge intervenes after ICE arrests 2nd asylum seeker in Portland immigration court

Updated Fri., June 6, 2025

A

second person was arrested

by federal agents in Portland Immigration Court as he appeared Thursday for an asylum case and lawyers petitioned to block his removal from Oregon.

By day’s end, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials not to take the 24-year-old Mexican national out of the state without providing notice in writing to him with its reasoning “why such a move is necessary.”

If immigration agents have already transferred the man to a federal detention center, Simon ordered ICE, the attorney general and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to notify him within two hours of being served with his order.

The man is identified in court documents only as Y-Z-L-H.

By Friday morning, federal officials had informed the judge that the man was removed from Oregon about 12:30 p.m. Thursday and taken to a detention center in Tacoma. The judge ordered ICE agents not to move him out of Tacoma, unless they return him to Oregon.

According to his lawyers, he came to the United States to escape death threats issued in 2023 by a violent drug cartel called La Familia Michoacana.

The Department of Homeland Security allowed him in July 2023 to remain in the U.S. temporarily after he crossed into the U.S. at El Paso, Texas, and he was released from custody.

He formally applied for asylum about a year ago, according to his petition filed in federal court in Portland.

“In a deceptive sleight of hand,” the federal government is now trying to eject him from his asylum case, detain him and rapidly deport him, according to his petition.

Attorneys Stephen W. Manning and Jordan Cunnings argued that Y-Z-L-H, who was born in Michoacan, still has due process rights, even if he’s not a U.S. citizen.

In 2024, the government began removal proceedings against him in Portland and ordered him to appear in immigration court.

Over the past year, he has complied with regular ICE check-ins, has a work authorization document valid through July 19 of this year and continued his asylum case, according to his petition.

On April 11, the government said it was revoking his temporary status in the United States through a “mass, generic notification system,” according to Manning and Cunnings.

Their client appeared Thursday for another asylum hearing but the government moved to dismiss his case entirely and the immigration court granted the motion.

When he walked out of the courtroom, several ICE agents arrested him in the courtroom lobby, the petition says. They did not provide him a chance to contest his arrest, even though a pro bono lawyer was available and accessible to him, according to the petition.

The man’s lawyers argue that the government has misconstrued a Jan. 20 executive action by President Trump called “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” that instructed the Homeland Security secretary “to take all appropriate action to enable” ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to “prioritize civil immigration enforcement procedures including through the use of mass detention,” according to the petition.

Manning and Cunnings argued in the petition that Trump’s executive order does not apply to noncitizens who were in the U.S. before its effective date.

The man’s petition alleges the government violated his due process rights under the Fifth Amendment and administrative procedure.

His arrest came three days after federal agents arrested

another 24-year-old asylum seeker

at Portland Immigration Court . On Monday, a transgender woman was taken within hours to a federal detention center in Tacoma, according to court records.

In that case, U.S. District Judge Amy M. Baggio ordered federal immigration officials “not to transport” the asylum seeker from the detention center in Tacoma to another location and demanded the government explain its reason for the 24-year-old’s detention.

Chatham McCutcheon, supervisory detention and deportation officer for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Portland, said in a sworn declaration to the court that the transgender woman was given a notice to appear Monday in Portland Immigration Court.

She appeared without a lawyer for an initial hearing and the Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss the immigration proceeding “notice,” McCutcheon said. ICE then immediately arrested her and transferred her to a Portland immigration enforcement office for removal.

ICE determined she was to be removed because there was no evidence she had been in the United States continuously over a 2-year period, according to McCutcheon.

The transgender woman said she feared persecution and torture if she were to be sent back to Mexico while she was being processed on Monday. So her file was referred for what’s called a “credible fear interview,” McCutcheon said.

Although she already was moved out of Oregon and detained in Tacoma, McCutcheon wrote to Baggio Thursday that ICE will no longer seek her immediate removal from the U.S. until an evaluation of her reported fear of going back to Mexico is done.

Meanwhile, she remains in custody.

If her fear is deemed credible, then she’ll face another appearance in immigration court. If the government doesn’t find her fear credible, ICE will not seek to remove her from the U.S. until an immigration judge reviews the government’s findings, according to McCutcheon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Keller argued that the transgender woman arrested in immigration court on Monday was detained and removed under the Immigration and Nationality Act. He wrote that the U.S. Constitution grants broad authority to the executive branch to administer the immigration system. A noncitizen dissatisfied with an immigration judge’s decision can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, according to Keller.

Other lawyers have countered that once someone is detained by ICE and held in a detention center in Tacoma, the person rarely is given a chance to appear before an immigration judge to challenge the detention. The lack of meaningful bond hearings there has led to a separate

class-action suit in Washington

.

— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X


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