A member of the Class of 2025 who was detained without provocation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents this summer was released recently from a Virginia detention center after three months in custody.
The former JR student, whose last name is Lopez Sarmiento, is the named plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia on behalf of four young people and others held by ICE in Virginia. The Beacon is withholding Lopez Sarmiento’s first name out of concern for his safety.
Lopez Sarmiento, who is 19, was detained outside of his home in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in early August. According to Lopez Sarmiento’s lawsuit, ICE agents had no warrant for his arrest, and no criminal activity had occurred.
Jackson-Reed Multilingual Counselor Camila Naverette said that Lopez Sarmiento arrived in DC two and half years ago from Honduras. She said he has been living in the U.S. under Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
After graduating from JR in June, Lopez Sarmiento continued his work in a restaurant. He had planned to start college in the fall at UDC, where he was awarded a scholarship.
English teacher Thomas Crocker taught Lopez Sarmiento last year. “He worked till 11:00 or midnight every night and still tried very hard in my class,” Crocker said. “He just wanted to come here for a better life. The only thing he’s guilty of is trying to support his family.”
Since his release from ICE custody earlier this month, Lopez Sarmiento has returned to JR to see teachers and friends.
After his detainment, Lopez Sarmiento’s lawyer reached out to the ACLU of Virginia, which filed the lawsuit. All four plaintiffs in the lawsuit had successfully applied for or were granted SIJS, which was established as a pathway to citizenship by Congress in 1990. SIJS was meant to help vulnerable minors who enter the U.S. under difficult circumstances, including abuse, abandonment, or neglect. Such individuals are often living in the U.S. with one or no parents.
Despite following the pathways set out by SIJS, the young people cited in the case were detained by ICE and sent to the Farmville and Caroline detention facilities in Virginia.
Unlike other noncitizens, people who come to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors have not typically been subject to detention. Before the current Trump administration, the Deferred Action Policy established that SIJS holders waiting for visas to grant them lawful permanent residence, which can take years, would be protected from deportation.
Under the policy, they also were eligible to apply for employment authorization. But in June the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services terminated the policy, putting at risk tens of thousands SIJS holders, like Lopez Sarmiento and his fellow plaintiffs.
The ACLU’s lawsuit argued that all four plaintiffs, and a proposed class of others, are entitled to bond hearings and should be released from detention because they have sought or been granted SIJS status.
On November 5, U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia ordered two other plaintiffs, who are brothers, to be released. On November 12, an immigration judge concurred with Trenga’s ruling, and ordered Lopez Sarmiento released.
“Federal law is very clear that young people who came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and were abused, abandoned, or neglected have every legal right to be in the United States,” ACLU-VA Legal Director Eden Heilman said in a statement. “ICE should never have picked up this young man and put him in a detention center—and today a judge ruled ICE has to let him go.”
Judge Trenga’s ruling stated that ICE, DHS, and the Trump Administration were interpreting the law incorrectly, stating that young people with SIJS status did not fall under mandatory detention requirements.
“Our clients are following the rules they’ve been given to obtain citizenship,” ACLU-VA Senior Immigrants’ Rights Attorney Sophia Gregg said in the statement. After the judges’ rulings, she said, “we now have confirmation that ICE is not.”•