CLEVELAND, Ohio — Saul Morales Chavez went on vacation with his family and ended up jailed for eight months and counting on civil immigration charges, despite no criminal history and living in the United States for more than 20 years.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security argued that he wasn’t entitled to a bond hearing because he had left the country — even though he hadn’t. Chavez vacationed in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.
He sued the government in federal court and won — arguing that Homeland Security attorneys and a Cleveland Immigration Court judge violated his due process rights by denying him the chance to argue that he should be released on bond.
Chavez’s attorney, Margaret Wong, said the case is a “good win” that can be used by her and others to file more lawsuits to ensure clients get bond hearings.
“Knowing immigration court, however, they’ll come up with a way to try and deny us bond anyway,” Wong said. “But what’s important about this is that from now on, we can cite this case.”
Chavez’s case is one of six federal lawsuits filed in northern Ohio in recent weeks. It’s part of a larger wave of cases filed across the country over immigration courts refusing to hold bond hearings.
“It’s literally the only way to get our clients out of custody,” said Cleveland Heights immigration attorney Brian Hoffman. “It’s the only way now.”
The issues stem from a Trump administration policy change in July and a Sept. 5 Board of Immigration Appeals decision that prevents people from seeking bond while their immigration cases are pending.
Government attorneys have used the order and board’s ruling to argue that immigrants are not entitled to a bond hearing and can be deported quickly without a full hearing.
Immigration judges and appeals board members are employees of the U.S. Department of Justice, not independent judges.
Previously, automatic bond denial applied only to immigrants who entered recently, were arrested near the border or faced certain criminal charges. If people didn’t fit that criteria, they could be granted bond if they weren’t deemed a danger or flight risk.
“Despite years of statutes and precedents, things have changed,” Case Western Reserve University immigration law professor Alex Cuic said. “Part of that is to chill people’s wish to use their legal rights. Instead of sitting in immigration custody, people are just leaving the country. It’s hard to fight a case when you’re detained.”
Cincinnati attorney Joe Spring said lawyers believe their clients aren’t getting fair hearings in immigration courts and are more likely to find success in federal district courts.
“The laws and the immigration court precedents are changing rapidly,” Spring said. “And it has all been in favor of the government.”
The growing list of lawsuits in Ohio mirrors what’s happening around the country. Dozens of individual lawsuits have been filed, along with several class-action lawsuits. In one class-action case in Tacoma, Washington, a federal judge ruled that the denial of bond hearings was unlawful. Judges in other districts have similarly ruled that immigration courts need to hold bond hearings.
In northern Ohio, a U.S. District Court judge in Youngstown and a district magistrate judge in Cleveland have so far ordered immigration judges to hold bond hearings. Both decisions only applied to the people who sued.
In Chavez’s case, U.S. District Magistrate Judge Reuben Sheperd this week said the government’s use of the board’s decision was “in error” and ordered a bond hearing for Chavez, who has lived and worked in North Little Rock, Arkansas, since 2001. Chavez is married, owns his home, pays taxes, has a job and has two daughters who are U.S. citizens. He also has no criminal history, according to the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson this month also ordered that the government overstepped its legal authority when it denied a bond hearing to two Haitian women who legally arrived in the U.S. under a humanitarian aid program and were later arrested by immigration authorities after their car broke down and detained for months.
Hoffman, the Cleveland Heights attorney, represented the two women and called the case “maddening.”
“The U.S. government knows that there aren’t enough lawyers to file as many [lawsuits] as there are people in detention, so they’re sort of using that to their advantage,” Hoffman said.
Three other similar cases are pending in northern Ohio.
Those include a 34-year-old Canton father of two and a 24-year-old Dayton man who fled Colombia after being threatened for becoming a police trainee. Neither had criminal histories, and both have been in the U.S. for more than two years, according to their lawsuits.
Abdoulaye Ba, 38, fled the West African country of Mauritania after he was arrested and tortured for standing up to government officials who took his family’s land, the lawsuit said. He lived in Cincinnati and worked in manufacturing in Florence, Kentucky, with a work permit, his lawsuit said.
He was arrested after a hearing in Cleveland Immigration Court and has been twice hospitalized while jailed at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, according to his lawsuit.
“The heartbreaking part is most of these people would have been released in the past,” Hoffman said. “Now, the first conversation you have to have is are you willing to spend several months in jail while you’re fighting your lawsuit.”
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