Lawyers for a 22-year-old Mexican citizen arrested two weeks ago at the ICE field office in Eugene didn’t file a challenge fast enough before officers drove the man across the Oregon border to the federal detention center in Tacoma.
A federal judge in Oregon said Tuesday that he no longer has jurisdiction over the case of Fernando Ledesma Gonzalez because the man is in custody in Washington and reluctantly transferred the case to the Seattle court.
Raquel E. Hecht, Ledesma Gonzalez’s lawyer, argued that it appears the government moved her client and others quickly out of state to make it more difficult for attorneys to challenge their detention in Oregon.
At least two other immigrants living in Oregon say they have faced the same fate as Ledesma Gonzalez.
The government’s attorney denied that ICE is trying to whisk asylum seekers away.
Ledesma Gonzalez came to the U.S. in 2017 at age 14 with his mother to escape death threats from a dangerous cartel in Mexico, he said in court records. He had been threatened with a machete held to his neck, according to the records.
An immigration judge in Portland considered his asylum application in mid-May and denied it on June 30, ordering Ledesma Gonzalez removed from the country. But the order wasn’t final and Ledesma Gonzalez had 30 days to appeal, until July 30.
Ledesma Gonzalez then went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Eugene on July 1 for a regular check-in and was arrested before he could speak to a lawyer, Hecht said.
Another attorney went to the Eugene ICE office and also emailed ICE officials to try to speak with the man detained, but the federal officers provided no information about his location or where he was being taken, Hecht said.
Because ICE has no detention center in Oregon, federal officers drove Ledesma Gonzalez to Washington and crossed the Columbia River on the Interstate Bridge at 7:31 p.m. July 1 and arrived at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma at 10:25 p.m., according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Susanne Luse.
Hecht, an immigration lawyer in Eugene, took the case at the request of Equity Corps of Oregon, she said, and filed a habeas petition in federal court in Eugene challenging Ledesma Gonzalez’s detention the next morning. Equity Corps of Oregon provides free immigration legal services to people living in Oregon who are at risk of deportation or need help with an immigration matter.
But because Ledesma Gonzalez was no longer in Oregon, his case must be now filed in federal court in the Western District of Washington, the place of his confinement, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai of Eugene ordered Tuesday.
But Kasubhai noted that such movement can impede Gonzalez’s petition and urged a Washington federal judge to transfer it back to him.
“I am very mindful of … the equitable difficulties in prosecuting a case in Washington,’’ Kasubhai said, including Ledesma Gonzalez’s access to his Eugene immigration lawyer, documents and potential witnesses.
The judge also noted that while there’s not a constitutional right to a lawyer in a habeas petition case, Oregon has historically appointed lawyers, but that’s not necessarily the case in Washington state, where Ledesma Gonzalez might have to pay for one and may not be able to afford it.
Since June, two other asylum seekers have been arrested during routine ICE check-ins in Oregon, quickly taken to the Tacoma detention center and then had their cases transferred to Washington.
Their attorneys have argued that the fast transfer has impeded their work, but they supported the transfer to avoid further delays that would occur in filing an entirely new petition in Washington.
But Hecht challenged the transfer on Ledesma Gonzalez’s behalf.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Susanne Luse told Kasubhai that the transfers are required because there’s no place in Oregon to hold detained immigrants for an extended duration.
“I can’t stress it enough: We‘re not trying to hide individuals or make a race for the border,” Luse said. “What we need to do is to detain individuals and the only way we can do it is in Washington” or another location outside of Oregon.
Luse also argued Gonzalez faces no additional burden because he can challenge his detention in federal court in Washington.
“There are a number of immigration law firms in the Western District of Washington, and I’ve seen Oregon attorneys get access to be in court in Washington,” she said. “It’s not insurmountable. There are a number of firms more than capable and willing to provide services.”
Hecht questioned Luse’s assertion that Oregon has no place to hold ICE detainees.
“Most people were held in Oregon for many, many years,” she said, adding that the ICE office in South Portland has four holding cells. That’s where she believes Ledesma Gonzalez was taken first, she said.
When Ledesma Gonzalez first entered the U.S., he was held in Douglas, Arizona, and released by immigration officers in and sought asylum in 2018 in Portland, according to his detention challenge.
His petition says the government never provided an “individualized determination” as to why he was arrested earlier this month. His circumstances hadn’t changed and his only contact with police were two speeding violations and a citation for driving without proper lights, according to the petition.
Hecht said she was not able to prepare and file a petition before Ledesma Gonzalez was driven out of Oregon. She also said she was refused access to the electronic portal for the District of Oregon’s federal filing system when she tried to file the petition, and the court was already closed.
Hecht, who usually appears in immigration court or before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on immigration cases, said she wasn’t as familiar with the portal for filing documents in federal court in Oregon.
“It would have been filed earlier if I had been able to access the system,” she said.
Contacted later Tuesday, Hecht said she is prepared for future cases. “We’re ready now.”
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