Colorado immigration lawyers are increasingly fighting their noncitizen clients’ detentions by using the same strategy at play in the challenge of activist Jeanette Vizguerra’s arrest in March.
These attorneys in recent months have been filing petitions for writs of habeas corpus — requests to determine the validity of a person’s detention — in order to bring the cases before federal judges for review. As the immigrants spend day after day in limbo inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora, the filing is a tactic that adds legal urgency — and the chance to get a federal judge to review the circumstances of detention and sometimes put deportation on hold in the process.
Vizguerra’s case has made national headlines since her detainment on March 17 outside her job at a local Target store, prompting an outcry from community leaders and spurring her lawyers to quickly file an emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Colorado’s federal district court. A judge ordered ICE not to deport Vizguerra until the petition could be litigated, and her team is amending it to include claims of constitutional violations.
In late March, habeas corpus petitions were filed on behalf of two other detainees in the Aurora facility — one a “stateless” man who doesn’t have citizenship in any country, the other a transgender woman from Central America who is challenging her lengthy detention.
Theirs are among five habeas corpus petitions tied to immigration — including Vizguerra’s — that have been filed since the start of the year in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, according to records pulled from a Courthouse News Service database. Last year, a total of eight such cases were filed for the entire year under the immigration category — and that was double the number in 2023.
Denver-area lawyers say they believe an even steeper uptick lies ahead as President Donald Trump’s administration continues its crackdown on illegal immigration. Catherine Chan, a Denver immigration attorney, said the number of habeas corpus cases had been low historically because only a handful of immigration lawyers do that type of work for detainees here.
But now, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union that advocate for immigrants’ rights are more interested in such cases, and detentions are rising with Trump’s push — resulting in the growing number of habeas corpus cases.
“I would imagine the nationwide trend is ticking in that direction,” Chan said.
The legal strategy is “mostly important, it seems, because today’s immigration apprehensions and detentions are seeming to fall outside the bounds of even the law,” Chan said.
Hans Meyer, another Denver immigration attorney, pointed to recent national reports of ICE officers allegedly violating federal court orders, immigration law and constitutional rights.
“ICE has to have a legal justification for depriving a person of liberty,” Meyer said. “And if there isn’t a legal justification, then the writ of habeas corpus is an important tool to stop ICE from breaking the law.”
But the agency has countered that their enforcement activities are legally sound, with U.S. attorneys arguing that they had a reinstated removal order to detain and deport Vizguerra.
A habeas corpus petition places a case within the purview of a federal judge because immigration judges don’t have the authority to make decisions about constitutional issues, Meyer said.
“We in the legal system need to look at avenues that would give people access to due process,” he said. “That’s gonna be — in many cases — filing these writs of habeas corpus in federal court.”
“Stateless” former Soviet waits in Aurora facility
One of the two cases filed late last month on behalf of ICE detainees is in support of Emmanuil Manoukian. His attorney filed a habeas corpus petition March 29.
According to his immigration lawyer, Brian Green, ICE has held Manoukian, a Los Angeles resident, at the Aurora facility for over seven months and has provided no further information on when he can expect to be removed from the country — even though the federal agency has surpassed the set time limit for such a removal.
Green says that although Manoukian was born in 1984 under the Soviet Union’s occupation in the country of Georgia, he isn’t a citizen there now. That’s because of a nationality law passed in 1993 after the small nation declared its independence. Manoukian and his mother had already fled Georgia to another European country at that point and weren’t eligible, Green said.
He added that Georgia has refused to give Manoukian a travel document. The petition notes Manoukian has criminal convictions, but it doesn’t elaborate.
As such, Manoukian is labeled by international law as a “stateless person” without any citizenship. He first entered the U.S. as a permanent resident with a visa in 2004. Thirteen years later, an immigration judge ordered Manoukian’s deportation, the petition says. Green declined to comment on the reason without his client’s permission.
Manoukian was detained in Los Angeles after he didn’t show up for an ICE check-in, Green wrote in the petition, and last month, ICE asserted that Manoukian wouldn’t be released from detention because he’s perceived as a flight risk.
Green wrote that ICE is seeking a country to accept Manoukian’s deportation.
“The U.S. government can’t force a country to take someone,” Green said in a phone interview, but “they can certainly negotiate, and they can entice third countries to take people.” His suspicion is that the agency is looking into whether Manoukian can apply for Russian citizenship — and, if so, ICE potentially would send him there, Green said.
He argues that the agency is violating both federal regulations and due process by continuing to detain his client, and Manoukian must be released until a removal date is confirmed.
“The habeas corpus (petition) is really the last-gasp attempt to make sure that people have their basic constitutional rights protected,” Green said.
Green, who’s also part of Vizguerra’s legal team, said ICE offices in the western U.S. are sending detainees to the Aurora facility, which is run by the private contractor GEO Group, because it serves as a processing center before deportations take place.
“That’s why I’m getting much busier in my practice with habeas cases,” he said. “That’s why I think the Colorado district court is going to have a lot more (habeas corpus petitions) than maybe Arizona or Utah.”
Trans woman fights to stay in U.S.
Another petition was filed in Denver on March 28 on behalf of Dayana Munoz Ramirez, known to ICE under her legal first name, Alfredo. Her lawyer, Colleen Cowgill at the National Immigrant Justice Center, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cowgill argues in the petition that Munoz Ramirez’s “unreasonably prolonged” detention is unconstitutional because it has violated her right to due process. Her client should either be released or allowed a custody hearing with an immigration judge, she wrote, so that the government has to justify her detention.
According to the petition, Munoz Ramirez, 47, is a transgender woman from El Salvador who was detained by ICE in November 2023 — over 16 months ago. Cowgill wrote that her client has experienced persecution, torture and violence in her home country because of her gender identity.
Munoz Ramirez opted to hide her transgender identity for much of her life to stay safe, Cowgill wrote. Her client moved to the U.S. in 1993 as a lawful permanent resident, and she was convicted of stealing a vehicle in 2006, according to the petition.
Ten years later, Munoz Ramirez was placed in removal proceedings around the same time that she came out to her family as transgender, Cowgill wrote. But Munoz Ramirez didn’t publicize her gender identity during her immigration proceedings and was deported to El Salvador in December 2018.
There, she tried to live openly as a transgender woman, but Munoz Ramirez was repeatedly beaten and raped by both gang members and police officers, Cowgill wrote. Following Munoz Ramirez’s extortion and kidnapping, she reentered the U.S. around May 2019, documents show.
According to Cowgill, Munoz Ramirez was convicted of car theft in 2020 when she was riding with a friend in a stolen vehicle, although she said she didn’t know it was stolen. In November 2023, she was detained and placed in the transgender unit of the Aurora ICE facility, where she began gender-affirming hormone therapy.
In part because of her 2006 conviction, an immigration judge denied her attempts to stop her deportation.
After some legal back and forth, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver granted her motion for an emergency stay of removal in December. Her case is being litigated in court.
But Cowgill wrote in the petition that her client may still be detained for months — or years. And at the ICE facility, Munoz Ramirez continues to face harassment by other detainees and threats by staff, the filing says.
The agency told The Denver Post that ICE takes very seriously its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in its custody. It said the allegations were not in keeping with ICE policies, practices and standards of care.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado declined to comment about Manoukian’s or Munoz Ramirez’s cases.
