WASHINGTON — R.V. had already spent six months in custody in California when he won his case in immigration court in June.
He testified that he fled his native Cuba in 2024 after protesting against the government, for which he was jailed, followed and persecuted. So, after being kidnapped in Mexico, he entered the US illegally and told border officials he feared for his life.
An immigration court judge granted him protection from deportation to Cuba, and 21-year-old R.V. was looking forward to reuniting with family in Florida.
But R.V., who asked that his full name not be used for fear of government retaliation, was not released. At the detention center, he said, agents told him they would still find a way to deport him – if not to Cuba, then perhaps to Panama or Costa Rica.
“The wait is very difficult,” he said in an interview. “It’s like they don’t want to admit that I won.”
RV is among what immigration lawyers say is a growing trend of some immigrants who have been protected from deportation to their home countries being held indefinitely.
Often a person is held in custody while the federal government appeals their victory or looks for another country willing to accept them.
The government has long had the ability to make such appeals or find another country to which it could deport someone; Department of Homeland Security usually has 90 days find another place to send them.
But in practice, such expulsions from third countries were raretherefore, the person was usually released and allowed to remain in the United States.
This practice has changed under the Trump administration. Recent guidance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials recommends keeping people in custody. Memo dated June 24For example, it states that “local offices no longer have the discretion to release aliens.”
At issue are cases of immigrants who, in lieu of asylum, are granted one of two types of immigration benefits known as “withholding of removal” orders and protection under the International Convention against Torture. Both cases have a higher burden of proof than asylum, but do not provide a path to citizenship.
These forms of assistance differ from asylum in key ways: while asylum protects against deportation anywhere, others only protect against deportation to a country where the person is at risk of harm or torture.
Jennifer Norris, an attorney with the Immigrant Advocates Law Center, said the government's actions now effectively render the suspension of deportation and protection under the anti-torture convention meaningless.
“We have entered a dangerous era,” Norris said. “These are clients who did everything right. They won their cases before an immigration judge, and now they are treated like criminals and remain in custody even after the immigration judge rules in their favor.”
Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Defense Network in Colorado, noted that rules against double jeopardy do not apply in these cases, so the government has the option of appealing if it loses.
“Here they have so much control over whether someone stays in custody because if they just appeal, that person could just sit in custody for at least six months or possibly years,” Lunn said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to specific questions and declined to comment.
Lawyers representing immigrants in long-term detention say the government is keeping people locked up in hopes of wearing down their clients so they will give up their fight to stay in the United States.
Ngoa, a Vietnamese man who asked to be identified by his family nickname meaning “horse,” was detained in California after he illegally crossed the southern border in March.
Ngoa fled Vietnam last year after being tortured by police who tried to extort a “protection tax” from him, according to his asylum application. When he refused, the police beat him, jailed him, and threatened to kill him and his family.
An immigration judge recently denied Ngoa asylum but granted him protection under the torture convention. His free lawyers appealed the denial of asylum.
In an interview through a translator, he said he decided to seek safety in the United States because he believed the government of any other country would deport him back to Vietnam. He said he didn't expect U.S. officials to try to get rid of him.
Ngoa said ICE officers told him they knew they couldn't send him back to Vietnam but would find another country willing to take him. Every morning, he said, an officer goes from dorm to dorm and asks if anyone wants to self-deport.
The thought of being deported keeps him up at night, but the alternative is almost as bad: “I'm afraid I'll be kept here for years,” he said.
DHS Rules allow continued detention when “there is a substantial likelihood of the detained alien's removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.”
Scenarios like this are becoming increasingly possible as Supreme Court decision in June expanded the ability of immigration authorities to quickly deport people to countries with which they have no personal ties.
After the ruling, ICE Issues Guidance directing agents to generally provide “at least 24 hours' notice” to migrants facing removal to a third country, but at least six hours' notice in “exigent circumstances.”
The guidance also says the U.S. needs to obtain strong diplomatic assurances that people deported will not be persecuted or tortured.
This year the Trump administration made deals with several countriesincluding Ghana, El Salvador and South Sudan, which is on the brink of civil war, to accept deportees.
“It has become more common practice for the government to hold back people who have been granted protection because in most cases they are actively seeking a third country that will accept them,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
Realmuto is one of the lead attorneys in the case challenging Homeland Security's practice of third-country removals.
Federal law states that the Department of Homeland Security must first find alternative countries with which the person being deported has some personal ties, and then, if it is “impractical, impractical, or impossible,” find a country whose government is willing to accept him.
Realmuto said the Trump administration is moving immediately to this last resort. As a result, she said, several people deported to a third country were sent back by that country's authorities to the country from which they originally fled.
Among them is Rabbiatou Kouyate, a 58-year-old woman who fled civil war in Sierra Leone 30 years ago and settled in Maryland until ICE agents detained her this summer during her annual check.
NBC News reports. that because a judge blocked ICE from sending her back to Sierra Leone, where she was tortured, the agency deported her to Ghana. But Ghanaian authorities forcibly put her on a bus bound for Sierra Leone.
In FY 2024, 2,506 individuals were eligible for withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture. according to the Congressional Research Service.
Realmuto said that, like Kouyate, tens of thousands of immigrants have received similar benefits over several decades. Such people could now be at risk of being re-detained while the government works to remove them to another country, she said.
The case of FB, a 27-year-old Colombian woman who entered the United States through the San Isidro Port of Entry in 2024, further illustrates the government's approach to the anti-torture convention. Facebook asked to be identified by her initials for fear of retaliation from the US government.
In February, FB won protection under the convention against torture. But instead of releasing her, the Department of Homeland Security said it was trying to deport her to Honduras, Guatemala or Brazil.
In September, FB's lawyers filed a request in federal court for her release.
“It's hard to argue that someone's removal is imminent if they've been in custody for eight months,” said her lawyer, Kristen Coffey.
Court records show the judge initially denied the request after ICE officials said they had booked her on a flight to Bolivia that would depart in three days.
But a month later she was still in US custody.
In ordering FB's release last month, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt in Indiana said the government's assertion that FB would be immediately deported “has been shown to be false” and that keeping her in custody is “contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
She was released that same day.
