On April 9, 2025, federal immigration enforcement agents arrested Diego Morales Jimenez, a Venezuelan national who has lawfully applied for asylum in the United States. For more than a year, Diego has complied with every order, instruction and condition of his case, including meeting the deadlines to file for asylum. The reason for his arrest have not been disclosed and the agents have asserted they can make these detention decisions at any time and for any reason including for no reason at all.

The federal immigration authorities arrested Diego so they could transfer him away into the vast immigration detention system hundreds or thousands of miles away from his home, his pregnant wife, his family, and his lawyers — a detention system that, according to the government in other cases, includes notorious foreign prisons beyond the reach of federal courts and due process. The federal immigration authorities asserted this power to arbitrarily detain Diego against the backdrop of a pervasive campaign of attacking immigrants.

Diego’s attorneys filed a petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus alleging that ICE’s arrest and detention of him violates the Due Process Clause and the Administrative Procedures. A federal judge in the District of Oregon issued an order blocking Diego’s transfer out of the District of Oregon. The next hearing on Diego’s petition is scheduled for May 8.

No person should be subjected to arbitrary and capricious detention.