Contact: Sean Lai McMahon
ICE continues to deport individuals who will face violence and death in their countries of birth
But we’re committed to changing that!
In ongoing federal litigation, Pangea and the San Francisco Public Defenders’ Office office are fighting for our client Willian’s right to due process and to stay with his family in the U.S. Willian is a young father and asylum seeker from El Salvador, with a lawful permanent resident partner and two U.S. citizen children. He came to the United States as a minor, fleeing harm in El Salvador.
Willian was swept up in the immigration enforcement system due to a wrongful criminal conviction in Maryland, and has been detained by ICE for three years. Despite his fear of torture by MS-13 and police in El Salvador, he received a deportation order while detained by ICE. However, after this order was issued but before he was deported, new facts arose: Willian received a new death threat from MS-13, the rule of law in El Salvador worsened, and his criminal conviction is being vacated because the plea agreement he was forced to take was illegal.
In situations like these, immigrants can file a “motion to reopen” their case to present new evidence to show they should not be deported. However, there is a devastating gap in the law — ICE will not guarantee that someone can stay here with their family while that motion is decided, and instead will try to deport them before they even have the opportunity to have their new evidence reviewed by any decision maker. In this Kafkaesque scenario, ICE argues that the immigrant should wait in his country of birth until his motion is granted — even if the court later agrees that he may be harmed or killed in that country.
This happened to Willian. In late May, ICE tried to deport Willian to harm and possible death, causing Pangea and the SF Public Defenders to immediately file a habeas petition in federal court arguing it was illegal to deport him until his motion to reopen was decided, because it would deprive him of due process of law to do so. Very few people have won this kind of argument before, though Pangea has won on this argument twice for two prior clients: Aaron in 2017 and Oumar in 2019. It is incredibly difficult to win a claim like this due to another gap in the law — ICE argues that a federal court does not have the authority to review their actions to deport someone. This puts immigrants like Willian in an absurd position: they have a right to file a motion to reopen based on their fear of being harmed in their country of birth, but ICE tries to deport them anyway, and claims their actions cannot be stopped by any court.
Pangea is still fighting for Willian to stay with an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but we have won a temporary stay of removal until mid-August to prevent his wrongful deportation. Pangea has also sued the Board of Immigration Appeals to force them to make a decision on Willian’s motion to reopen before mid-August. Pangea is committed to fighting for all asylum seekers like Willian to be safe and have due process in court.