By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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A U.S. district judge last week ordered that three young immigrants who are being held in the Caroline and Farmville detention centers must be granted bond hearings.
The young men are plaintiffs in a class-action suit filed last month by the ACLU of Virginia. All of the plaintiffs came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and have been granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, which is a pathway to lawful permanent residency established by Congress in 1990.
SIJ status is granted to immigrants who entered the country as minors after being abused, neglected, or abandoned.
“While they are waiting for their lawful permanent residence status, SIJS recipients typically receive ‘deferred action,’ which is a promise by the government not to attempt to remove them absent some new justification,” the petition filed in October by the ACLU-VA states.
However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is treating the named plaintiffs as arriving noncitizens subject to mandatory detention, the petition argues.
On November 6, Anthony Trenga, senior U.S. District Court judge, agreed with the ACLU-VA and ordered that the named plaintiffs be granted bond hearings within eight days of his decision.
In addition, Trenga ordered that “if Petitioners are granted bond by an Immigration Judge, Respondents are ENJOINED from denying bond to Petitioners, or from invoking the automatic stay provision pursuant.”
Following this order, an immigration judge ruled that two of the named plaintiffs, brothers being held separately in Farmville, must be released, according to a press release from the ACLU-VA.
“These young brothers came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and cannot safely return to their home countries after it was determined that they were abused, abandoned, or neglected,” said ACLU-VA Legal Director Eden Heilman, in the press release. “Federal law says they have every legal right to be in the United States, and that ICE should never have put them in a detention center. Now they will finally be freed from detention and reunited with each other.”
Jojo LeBlanc, communications associate for the ACLU-VA, told the Advance in an email on Wednesday that third named plaintiff, who is being held in Caroline Detention Center, is expected to have his bond hearing this week.
He is a native of Honduras, was designated as an unaccompanied minor in March of 2023, and obtained SIJ status in August of 2024.
In addition to the named plaintiffs, the ACLU-VA’s petition argues that a proposed class of other immigrants with SIJ status are also entitled to bond hearings and should be released from detention.
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