Richmond, VA – On Friday, September 17, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release M.H., an asylum seeker whom the court determined had been illegally held at Farmville Detention Center for over a month after an Immigration Judge (IJ) had ordered him released on bond.

At the core of this decision was whether ICE can unilaterally override an IJ’s decision to release someone on bond simply because ICE disagrees with the IJ’s decision—a practice that is a significant due process violation. The court’s legal analysis also rejected the Trump administration’s argument for subjecting potentially millions of immigrants nationwide to mandatory detention. It prevents ICE from having unreviewable veto power over an immigration judge’s decision on bond, reaffirming the importance of due process rights and the legality of such decisions.

M.H., a Southeast Asian artist, entered the U.S. at the end of 2024, fleeing violence from Islamic fundamentalists. After moving to Virginia, M.H. filed for asylum in January 2025. 

In July of this year, he was required to check in with ICE as part of their Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP). M.H. arrived at the appointment only to be told that he would be forced to wear an ankle monitor, with the office insisting it was mandated by an Executive Order—though no such order exists. He was strapped with the ankle monitor and instructed to report back about two weeks later.

The ankle monitor caused M.H. severe discomfort, enough that he sought medical help and provided the ICE office with a note from his medical provider explaining how the monitor was aggravating his chronic nerve pain. On his return check-in, after asking for the monitor to be removed or switched to the other leg, M.H. was abruptly arrested, shoved into an officer’s car, refused access to his lawyer, and taken to the ICE detention center in Farmville, Virginia.

On August 13, M.H. appeared before an IJ and was granted the minimum bond, allowing for his release. But ICE invoked a 9/11-era, “automatic stay” regulation, enacted without apparent authority from Congress, that empowers them to keep people detained when ICE appeals a bond ruling, in direct contradiction of the immigration judge’s order. ICE also asserted, based on a sudden and drastic departure from decades of prior practice, that M.H. and most other noncitizens who entered the U.S. without authorization are never eligible to be released on bond.

Following ICE’s unlawful action, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights quickly filed a habeas petition in federal court demanding his release. They argued that the automatic stay regulation violates both the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the U.S. Constitution, and that the new Trump administration policy denying bond to most noncitizens is unlawful.

Following a hearing on the habeas petition, on September 19, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued an order, supported by a 25-page opinion, finding that ICE’s conduct indeed violated M.H.’s constitutional due process rights, and rejecting the Trump administration’s sweeping new interpretation of who is eligible for bond. The judge ordered him released that same day.

This decision adds to the growing number of cases in which federal courts have found that the government’s conduct violates the statutory and constitutional rights of noncitizens. It also explains why DHS’s claim that most asylum seekers are ineligible to even request bond from ICE detention is wrong as a matter of statutory interpretation.

“The decision offers hope that the rule of law—from constitutional freedoms to canons of statutory interpretation—will not be discarded,” said Elizabeth Schmelzel, a Senior Attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center. “It is with that hope that we stand in solidarity with clients like M.H.”

“The Court’s decision is a positive step forward that pushes back against the Trump administration’s outrageous attempt to detain as many noncitizens as possible,” said Evan Benz, Senior Attorney for Amica Center’s Immigration Impact Lab. “This ruling ensures that ICE can’t arbitrarily overturn a Judge’s choice to release someone and will support future cases where ICE argues—incorrectly—that undocumented people are not eligible for bond.”

While this decision only involved the release of one noncitizen, M.H., it sets a precedent for noncitizens who have been deprived of longstanding legal protections by the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on basic due process. People like M.H. must increasingly look to federal courts to assert the proper checks and balances against an executive branch that continues to stack the deck against them and deprive them of a fair chance to make their case. This decision should serve as a clear statement that due process and the Constitution apply to everyone, regardless of their place of origin.

M.H. was represented by the Legal Aid Justice Center and the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights.