Held without bail in Oklahoma’s ICE facilities, immigrants turn to federal courts for release

Held without bail in Oklahoma’s ICE facilities, immigrants turn to federal courts for release

ARI FIFE

THE FRONTIER

After fleeing political persecution and building “a life, family and community” in the U.S. over 20 years, a Chinese immigrant was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a routine check-in and held at the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing for months.

He entered the U.S. as an asylum seeker in the late 1990s, but his claim was denied and he was ordered to be removed from the country, according to a federal lawsuit filed in the Western District of Oklahoma. He’s been on an ICE order of supervision for years. Court records indicate that he’s paid taxes for over two decades and worked on a farm before his arrest. They also state that he’s had no criminal arrests or convictions.

His lawyers wrote in a petition for release that federal authorities had violated his constitutional rights by holding him without bail.

A federal judge in early December ordered the man to be released, ruling immigration authorities failed to prove that they were detaining him because it was significantly likely that he would be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Another detainee held at the Kay County Detention Center in Newkirk was charged with entering the U.S. illegally, but has lived in the country for 17 years and has six children who are U.S. citizens. He alleged in a court filing that his detention violated his right to due process.

Court proceedings involving immigration detainees such as these typically aren’t public, but these filings, which were unsealed, provide a rare glimpse into cases playing out in federal courts across the United States as the Trump administration has pushed to expand the use of mandatory detention for immigrants facing deportation.

In recent months, habeas corpus petitions have been increasingly used by immigration lawyers to secure their clients’ release. Named after a Latin phrase meaning “you have the body,” they are legal actions asking a judge to consider whether a person’s detention is legal.

The federal Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in September that anyone in immigration detention who entered the country illegally is not entitled to a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

Since then, immigrants have had to request bond hearings through habeas corpus petitions — a filing that was previously rarely used in immigration cases.

Attorneys and detainees have filed 100 habeas corpus petitions in Oklahoma federal courts since September, according to Habeas Dockets, a nonprofit that tracks federal filings related to immigration. Before this year, there hadn’t been any cases classified on PACER as habeas corpus lawsuits involving noncitizen detainees across the state since 2023.

The federal government’s position on mandatory detention has been challenged in courts across the country. A federal judge ruled late last month that the Trump administration can’t detain immigrants arrested in domestic enforcement operations nationwide without allowing them to seek release on bond. The Trump administration is appealing the decision.

Attorneys working habeas corpus cases in Oklahoma say the Trump administration upended decades of precedent that allows immigrants who aren’t considered flight risks or dangers to their communities to be released on bail.

Some of their clients have been held for months at facilities like the Cimarron Correctional Facility, a private prison owned by CoreCivic in central Oklahoma that has had a daily average of 558 immigration detainees so far this fiscal year.

CoreCivic was awarded another contract with ICE to begin holding immigration detainees at its long-shuttered Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga early next year, which could eventually hold up to 2,160 people from all over the country.

The Kay County Detention Center in Newkirk has had a contract with ICE to house immigration detainees since June 2019. ICE detention data indicate that it has held a daily average of 163 individuals so far this fiscal year.

Detainees are sometimes bounced between facilities across the country, and it can be difficult to get updates from ICE on their location, said Oklahoma City-based civil rights attorney Robert Don Gifford.

“They’ve asked you to help them, and you feel helpless yourself because anything you do, you’re just running into a brick wall, and any questions or requests you put out are just met with silence,” Gifford said.

The Constitution gives everyone in the country the right to due process, not just U.S. citizens. Gifford is helping with habeas corpus petitions in some immigration cases and believes many individuals aren’t getting proper legal protections as they face deportation.

Some immigrants don’t have a chance to challenge their detention, Gifford said. They could face logistical challenges in reaching counsel as they’re transferred between facilities. They can also be subject to accelerated processes that lead to them getting deported before they get a fair hearing.

Most of the immigrants that Tulsa-based immigration attorney Lorena Rivas said she represents are long-term residents in the country with family members who are U.S. citizens. Many are the primary breadwinners for their families, she said.

Rivas also said most don’t have serious criminal issues and are considered nonviolent, which are some of the factors a judge would usually consider in a bond hearing.

ICE data indicate that so far this fiscal year, an average of only about 32% of detainees at the Cimarron Correctional Facility and 39% of detainees at the Kay County Detention Center have had criminal convictions.

Elissa Stiles, a lawyer in the same office as Rivas, said her clients at Cimarron and the Kay County Detention Center are experiencing prison-like conditions even though they haven’t been charged with a crime. They often struggle to get enough sleep and medical care. Their mental health deteriorates as they languish in detention for months, she said.

Dan Gividen, an immigration attorney who has written habeas petitions for cases in Oklahoma and Texas, said he thinks more immigrants are willing to accept being deported because they don’t want to endure the poor conditions at detention facilities.

“Having your liberty stripped from you is a big deal,” Gividen said.

Stiles said in early December she was hopeful the federal ruling making some immigrants eligible for bond hearings again would mean that habeas corpus petitions aren’t necessary in many cases.

But she said since then, she’s heard reports that some immigration judges haven’t been abiding by the decision when considering the cases of detainees in Oklahoma. More than 100 immigration judges have reportedly been fired since January, fueling concerns that the Trump administration is targeting judges who haven’t ruled in keeping with its immigration policies.

The Frontier (ReadFrontier.org) is a nonprofit newsroom that produces fearless journalism with impact in Oklahoma. Read more at www.readfrontier.org.