Migrants Detained in Puerto Rico were Released Following Habeas Petitions
9 Millones spoke with several immigration lawyers to understand what they have learned about defending their immigrant clients
Angel Luis García Espinal, a Dominican migrant, was detained by federal immigration authorities on January 9, 2026 while driving his daughters around San Juan. At the time, his spouse, a U.S. citizen, had already filed a petition to regularize his status. He was transferred to the Aguadilla Processing Center, where he was detained for two weeks, until his lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition alleging that his detention violated his due process rights, according to court documents.
García Espinal is one of five immigrants living in Puerto Rico for more than 10 years and in the process of regularizing their immigration status, who have been freed from immigration detention after their lawyers filed habeas corpus petitions. Through these petitions, they can continue their immigration hearings outside of detention (after paying bail). 9 Millones spoke with several immigration lawyers to understand this process and what they have learned about defending their immigrant clients.
“They are living a very big injustice,” Raymond Sánchez Maceira, García Espinal’s lawyer, said about the three clients he has represented in habeas petitions who were detained even though they are in the process of regularizing their status.
What is this legal strategy?
Habeas corpus, a legal instrument that has been a cornerstone of due process in U.S. law, has become a key legal strategy for immigration lawyers seeking to free their clients from immigration detention. Previously, migrants had the ability to ask for a bail hearing if they had no criminal records and a judge believed they were not a risk to the community or likely to flee. But in 2025, the Board of Immigration Appeals upended that precedent, stating that every immigrant who entered the U.S. unlawfully has to be mandatorily detained, forcing them to file habeas petitions if they want to go free. Recently, a federal appeals court reaffirmed this decision.
Habeas petitions have been vital to challenging the Trump administration’s authoritarian orders, particularly when they invoked the Alien Enemies Act to detain and deport Venezuelan migrants, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Puerto Rico attorneys have learned that the habeas petition must be submitted within a day of the person being detained; any later could risk them being transferred out of Puerto Rico. Because the archipelago does not have a permanent detention center, most migrants are moved somewhere in the United States within a couple of days of being detained, multiple immigration lawyers told 9 Millones. This practice separates migrants from their support system and their lawyers, which can cause significant delays in their cases.
“They arrest these people, and since there are no arrest warrants against them, and they don't pose a flight risk or danger to the community because they have no criminal record, they [the immigration authorities] try to get them out of Puerto Rico as quickly as possible without bail,” said Fermín Arraiza Navas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Puerto Rico (ACLU-PR), about a practice that makes more difficult their legal defense.
ACLU-PR has presented five habeas petitions since the end of December, 2025. So far, two of their clients have been released on bond, and a third one, Albeto Pierre, a Haitian immigrant, has his bond hearing in Florida on Thursday. They have filed an urgent petition in the First Circuit court to bring him back to Puerto Rico.
9 Millones reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforecement (ICE) for comment, and they did not inmediately respond.
Rosaura González Rucci, an immigration lawyer who has submitted habeas petitions alongside the ACLU-PR, said she has had clients detained and flown out of Puerto Rico a day or even hours before their court appointment with an immigration court judge. “They are doing everything to make sure that they can not go to their hearing,” González Rucci said. Transferring migrants before their hearing has become commonplace since the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement, she added.
The at least eight habeas petitions presented in Puerto Rico have mostly been for immigrants who had ongoing cases to regularize their immigration status, which helps to argue that they should be released with bail easier in federal court, they explained.
The ACLU-PR’s first habeas petition was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, but they are appealing this case. Their client was removed from Puerto Rico after they had already filed the temporary restraining order to keep him here, Arraiza Navas claimed.
A second case presented by the ACLU-PR and other immigration lawyers almost ended the same way. However, following an order to compel the return of their client to Puerto Rico from Broward Transitional Center in Miami, Florida, a federal judge ordered Teofilo Ávila be returned to Puerto Rico by February 2, 2026. He arrived back to the archipelago on February 1.
Not yet out of the woods
Even though these lawyers and their clients have won in federal court, it does not mean that they are out of the woods. If they manage to avoid their client being removed from Puerto Rico, they still have to deal with their case in immigration court, which could take more than a year or more, Sánchez Maceira explained.
Interpretations regarding jurisdiction sometimes get messy, as shown in Ramón Ibaldi Váldez’s case—a Dominican migrant represented by Sánchez Maceira. He was given bail, but then it was removed after ICE argued the immigration judge did not have jurisdiction over the case. Sánchez Maceira filed an emergency reconsideration to prevent the District Court from dismissing the habeas case, in the interest of keeping his client out of immigration detention.
Another hurdle faced by migrants are high bail bonds. Most of the habeas petitions have been given a bond of more than $10,0000, explained Julie Cruz Santana, another immigration lawyer who has presented habeas petitions. Sánchez Maceira added the lowest he’s seen has been $7,500, while González Rucci has seen bonds that range from $3,000 to $6,000. None of the attorneys interviewed by 9 Millones had their clients receive the legal minimum for immigration court bonds, which is $1,500.
“It is a way of using subterfuge in the process to prevent that person from going free,” Cruz Santana said. She claims that she has never seen bonds that high in immigration cases in the last 25 years. Both González Rucci and Sánchez Maceira called the bonds their clients have received “completely unreasonable.”
Many of these bonds were set based on a person’s potential flight risk or if they posed a danger to the community, something immigration lawyers scoffed at. Neither of Cruz Santana’s clients had criminal records, and both had been living in the U.S. territory for more than 15 years, she explained. One is married to a U.S. citizen who was present at the immigration hearing, she added.
While there is little data on the economic situation of migrant communities, nearly half of Puerto Rico lives below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census data, which would make it hard for many people to pay for such a large bond out of pocket.
If the immigrants are unable to pay for these high bonds, they could still be moved to a detention center in the U.S., Arraiza Navas explained. They can continue their immigration cases while they remain detained there, but that could take up to four or five years due to how overloaded the immigration courts are, Cruz Santana explained.
Although this remedy is not available for all detainees, ACLU-PR plans to keep using these petitions as long as the government continues to carry out arbitrary, illegal, or unjust arrests, a spokesperson said. The same applies with other immigration lawyers consulted by 9 Millones. “Trump has gone too far. It's one thing for you to determine how to implement it within the margin of discretion that the law itself gives you, but it's another thing to be practically nullifying the law, because he's violating the law, he's doing things that are not in accordance with the law… And that's where the problem lies”, insisted González Rucci.
Journalists Camille Padilla Dalmau and Laura Quintero contributed editing.
