Four Venezuelan migrants filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on September 13, 2024, challenging the legality of their indefinite detention at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Each of the petitioners came to the United States seeking asylum, and each passed an initial Credible Fear Interview with U.S. asylum officers by establishing a credible fear of persecution or torture in their home country. Though an immigration judge ultimately ordered the petitioners to be deported to Venezuela, they remain indefinitely caged in ICE detention due to U.S. foreign policy. In January 2024, Venezuela announced it would stop accepting deportation flights from the U.S. due to the U.S.’s decision to re-impose economic sanctions on Venezuela that it had previously lifted in 2023. Bilateral relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate after the U.S. refused to recognize Nicolás Maduro as president after Venezuela’s July 2024 election.

Otero County Processing Center has a well-documented history of both civil rights and human rights abuses, including medical neglect, retaliation, and abuse. Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the ACLU of New Mexico represent many of those who have been subject to ICE’s unconstitutional and inhumane practices. One of the petitioners here was subjected to retaliatory solitary confinement – a form of torture – for refusing to be deported to Mexico, despite having no contacts there, for fear of serious injury. A few months prior, another man from Ecuador died at Otero County of undetermined causes.

The writ of habeas corpus allows people who are detained to challenge the legal basis of their confinement. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment forbids the government from depriving any person of liberty without the due process of law. Prolonged and indefinite civil detention violate that constitutional principle.

Moreover, the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes a 90-day mandatory detention period after a person has been ordered removed while ICE arranges for their deportation. People detained beyond the 90-day period should generally be released, often with conditions of supervision. The petitioners in this case have been in ICE detention between nine months and a year, and have been detained for five to seven months since being ordered removed – well beyond the 90-day mandatory detention period. Since none of the petitioners is likely to be removed to Venezuela in the foreseeable future, their attorneys argue they should be released immediately.