A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the government to release temporary status holders protected by Venezuela who was detained wrongly in January and was almost applied to deportation flights to El Salvador.
US District Judge Rolando Olvera also ordered the government to pay Adrian Gil Rojas’s trip back to his home in New York from the Detention Center in Texas.
The judge recommends an ankle monitor placed in Rojas while waiting for the immigration session in the future.
According to court records, Rojas was arrested more than two months ago after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer entered his house to find someone else.
“He opened [the door] Carrying his 2 -year -old son, “said Lawyer Rojas in a complaint submitted in March.” The officers took his son from him, handcuffed and his fingerprints, all without permission or approval. “
Rojas, according to court records, repeatedly told immigration officers that he had a valid polling station status and showed them immigration documents.
“The officers ignored it but maintain the document,” said the complaint.
Allegations of members of the Venezuelan Criminal Organization Trend de Aragua deported by the US government, detained at the Center for Terrorism in Tecoluca, El Salvador in a photo obtained by March 16, 2025.
Presidential Press Secretary through Reuters
In submission on Tuesday, a letter from US citizenship and immigration services entered as an exhibition said that the status of TPS Rojas had been revoked and accused that he was a member of the Venezuelan Gang Trend de Aragua.
According to the letter, the US government determined that Rojas was a TDA member because of its social media posts that showed that he lived with a known TDA member and because of his tattoo.
Lawyer Rojas pushed back the letter from the USCIS who said the document “was not enough to end the status of the TPS and it did not make the detention legally legally.”
“Respondents told the Petitioner for the first time today that they intend to withdraw the existing TPS grant,” Rojas’s lawyer said in the submission. “The letter received by the Petitioner shows that the respondent believes he is a” member or affiliation “of the de Aragua trend, a representative they have not made before this court.”
In a court order on Wednesday, Judge Olvera said Rojas had a valid TPS status.
On March 14, after Rojas “suddenly moved” to the detention center in Texas, he and others were placed on the transfer flight they were told to go to Venezuela -but “because of mechanical problems,” the plane did not take off, according to complaints.
Rojas, according to court records, was told that he would be placed on a new flight the next day. Mitra Rojas then told his lawyer that Rojas would be deported from the US, and then that day a judge gave a request for a lawyer for a temporary detention order that prevented his transfer.
The next day, more than 200 Venezuelan men who claimed the government were gang members who were detained in the same Texas facility as Rojas-placed on flights and deported under the Alien Enemy Law to a famous prison in El Salvador with a process that was not too not.
“We are horrified that the government will ignore the legal protection enjoyed by Gil Rojas and ready to send him to El Salvador, to the terrible prison,” lawyer Javier Maldonado told ABC News.
“He is lucky and I hope that administration knows that they must comply with the law and they must ensure that the people they collect are not individuals who have the right to remain in the US and have legal rights that can be confirmed in court,” Maldonado said.
In his response, the government acknowledged that Rojas was not “deported today” but argued that he must remain detained until the benefits of his TPS are expected to end on April 2.
Rojas missed the court date in September which produced absent Sequence of deletion. Rojas’s lawyer since then submitted a motion to cancel the order.
One of Rojas’s lawyers was the main advisor in a separate case that challenged the Trump government’s decision to end the TPS protection earlier than the date of October 2026 given by the Biden government. Last week, a federal judge forbade government from ending protection up to 350,000 migrants on April 2.
“Even if the TPS is indeed expired, Mr. Gil Rojas will not be the target of the transfer except and until the immigration judge who leads his transfer case has denied the motion to be reopened,” Rojas’s lawyer said in the submission last week.
“The government can only hold people where he has the authority to do it now, not where he can get such authority in the future,” said his lawyer.