detention

NEW ORLEANS — The wife of a U.S. soldier was released Tuesday from a federal immigration detention facility where she had spent nearly a week after being taken into custody on a Louisiana military base.

The detention of 22-year-old Annie Ramos, the Honduran-born wife of a U.S. Army staff sergeant preparing to deploy, prompted public backlash from critics of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign who warned it demoralized troops during an ongoing war.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Ramos’ mother-in-law, Jen Rickling, confirmed her release to the Associated Press. The New York Times first reported Ramos’ release.

Ramos, who married Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank in March, had been detained by federal immigration agents while attempting to register at his base to receive military benefits and ultimately obtain a green card. She had lived in the country since she was less than 2 years old. Homeland Security said Ramos had been ordered removed by a federal immigration judge in 2005 after her family had failed to appear for a hearing.

Ramos and her husband say she has been attempting to gain legal status, including by applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2020 though her application remained stalled amid legal battles to eliminate the program.

“All I have ever wanted is to live with dignity in the country I have called home since I was a baby,” Ramos said in a statement to the Associated Press after her release. “I want to finish my degree, continue my education, and serve my community — just as my husband serves our country with honor.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, said that Kelly had called Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin regarding Ramos’ detention. Blank has family in Arizona.

“I’m happy Annie is back with her husband and family where she belongs,” Kelly said in a statement. “They never should have gone through this painful process, but far too many families like theirs are because of this administration.”

Homeland Security told the Associated Press that Ramos had been released with a GPS monitor “while she undergoes further removal proceedings.”

“She will receive full due process,” Homeland Security said.

The Trump administration has scrapped policies of immigration enforcement leniency toward the family members of military personnel and veterans, even as the military has promoted the protection of U.S. soldiers’ family members from deportation as a recruiting incentive.

Ramos said she plans to continue studying biochemistry and focusing on enjoying married life with her husband.

“As Matthew continues preparing for his long career in the military, my focus now is on securing my status, continuing my studies, and building our life together,” Ramos said. “We want to create a home, a future, and a family. This experience has been incredibly difficult, but it has also reminded me of the power of faith, love, and community. I am hopeful for what comes next.”

Brook writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Juan Lozano contributed to this report from Houston.

MINNEAPOLIS — Airport security video shows another way federal agents are taking immigrants to detention centers — in some cases they’re using commercial flights, with escorts dressed like any other passenger.

Video obtained through a public records request shows a 5-year-old boy who became a face of the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis being flown with his father to Texas on a Delta Air Lines flight, just a day after they were taken into custody. He had been detained while wearing a bunny hat.

Adrian Conejo Arias and son Liam Conejo Ramos seemed calm in these recordings as they were being escorted through the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by a man and two women dressed in plain clothes. Since the father and boy didn’t appear to be in custody, their trip to San Antonio probably went unnoticed by fellow passengers.

The Trump administration, like its predecessors, is mostly using ICE Air Operations charter flights as it detains hundreds of thousands of people for deportation. Human rights monitors are trying to keep track as detainees are loaded onto planes in shackles in parts of airports the public can’t easily see.

The video of Liam and his father, they say, exposes another route that’s harder for rights monitors to document, despite happening in plain view inside the same airport terminals where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing tactical, military-style gear are now being deployed to support security checkpoints.

What happened in this case?

The father, who was seeking asylum from Ecuador, and son were detained by ICE officers in Minnesota on Jan. 20 and taken to Texas. They were released on a judge’s orders and returned to Minnesota, but then an immigration judge denied their asylum request. The family’s lawyer said they’re appealing.

The video that revealed their commercial airline travel was first obtained by Nick Benson, an aviation enthusiast and activist with MN 50501, a grassroots group involved in anti-ICE and No Kings protests. Benson said he’s never seen children while monitoring ICE charter flights, so he suspected the agency was flying them commercially. He identified the time and day the father and son were flown out of Minneapolis, filed a public records request for the security video — and there they were.

The Associated Press obtained the same video through a similar request to the MSP Airport Police Department. It shows the father carrying the boy’s Spider-Man backpack as a woman shows an airline agent their boarding passes. A man and the other woman follow them onto the jet bridge.

Delta declined to comment on the video. But the airline said most government travel is booked through third-party agencies, with no advance notice about who is flying or why. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

What is ICE Air?

ICE Air Operations transfers and deports people mostly using flights chartered through airline broker CSI Aviation, which has subcontracted with small airlines such as GlobalX, Eastern Air Express, Bighorn Airways, Key Lime Air and Avelo Airlines.

ICE Air continues to rapidly expand both domestic transfer and deportation flights, according to Human Rights First, which documented 1,630 immigration enforcement flights in February alone. Of that total, 183 were deportation flights and 1,170 were domestic transfer flights.

ICE also uses U.S. Coast Guard planes. Flight Monitor said it has tracked hundreds of flights since June in which Coast Guard planes were used to transport immigrants domestically.

“It seems that ICE sometimes uses commercial flights to destinations where they don’t carry out kind of larger scale ICE Air deportation flights,” said Savi Arvey, director of research and analysis for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First.

The monitors use flight-tracking websites to follow the charter planes, but these tools can’t track individual passengers on commercial flights, making them “less in the public eye,” Arvey said. “It adds another level of opaqueness.”

Bellisle and Vancleave write for the Associated Press. Bellisle reported from Seattle. AP writers Rio Yamat in Las Vegas and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

The U.S. can continue to detain immigrants without bond, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday, handing a victory to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

The opinion from a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overturned a lower court ruling that required that a native of Mexico arrested for lacking legal documents be given a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

It’s the second appeals court to rule in favor of the administration on this issue. The 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled last month that the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country was consistent with the Constitution and federal immigration law.

Both appeals court opinions counter recent lower court decisions across the country that argued the practice is illegal.

In November, a district court decision in California granted detained immigrants with no criminal history the opportunity to request a bond hearing and had implications for noncitizens held in detention nationwide.

Under past administrations, most noncitizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border had an opportunity to request a bond hearing while their cases wound through immigration court. Historically, bond was often granted to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers.

In the case before the 8th Circuit, Joaquin Herrera Avila of Mexico was apprehended in Minneapolis in August 2025 for lacking legal documents authorizing his admission into the United States. The Department of Homeland Security detained Avila without bond and began deportation proceedings.

He filed a petition seeking immediate release or a bond hearing. A federal judge in Minnesota granted the petition, saying the law authorized detention without bond when a person seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to being admitted. The judge found this was not the case for Avila because he had lived in the country for years without seeking naturalization, asylum or refugee status and thus wasn’t “seeking admission.”

Circuit Court Judge Bobby E. Shepherd wrote for the majority in a 2-1 opinion that the law was “clear that an ‘applicant for admission’ is also an alien who is ‘seeking admission,’” and so Avila couldn’t petition on these grounds.

Circuit Court Judge Ralph R. Erickson dissented, saying that Avila would have been entitled to a bond hearing during his deportation hearings if he had been arrested during the past 29 years. Now, he wrote, the Circuit Court has ruled that Avila and millions of others would be subject to mandatory detention under a novel interpretation of “alien seeking admission” that hasn’t been used by the courts or five previous presidential administrations.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Avila, didn’t immediately return an email message seeking comment.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi hailed the ruling, writing in a social media post: “MASSIVE COURT VICTORY against activist judges and for President Trump’s law and order agenda!”

At question is the issue of whether the government is required to ask a neutral judge to to determine whether it is legal to imprison someone.

It’s based on the habeas corpus, which is a Latin legal term referring to the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.

Immigrants have filed more than 30,000 habeas corpus petitions in federal court alleging illegal detention since Trump took office, according to a tally by the Associated Press. Many have succeeded.

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

The 33-year-old Columbia University protester had been held in immigration detention centre for a year.

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman detained in the United States after taking part in pro-Palestine demonstrations in 2024, has been released after a year in custody.

The 33-year-old, who grew up in the occupied West Bank before moving to the US in 2016, was held at a detention facility in the state of Texas since March last year.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” a smiling Kordia told reporters after leaving the detention centre on Monday.

An immigration judge had ruled Kordia was eligible to be released on bond three times. Immigration officials appealed the first two rulings but Kordia was freed on $100,000 bond after government lawyers did not challenge the third.

After her release, Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother “so hard.” But she also said she would keep fighting on behalf of people still being held at the detention centre

“There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she said. “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here the first place.”

Kordia, who lost nearly 200 members of his family during Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, was among several protesters targeted by immigration officials for taking part in pro-Palestine demonstrations at Columbia University in 2024.

Until Monday, she was the only person targeted in connection with the demonstration who was still in immigration detention after the release of others, including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.

Kordia, who was held at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, was recently hospitalised for three days following a seizure after fainting and hitting her head at the privately run detention facility.

At a hearing on Friday, Kordia’s lawyers said she had a neurological condition that had worsened while in custody, putting her at an elevated risk of seizure. They reiterated that she could stay with US citizen family members and did not pose a flight risk.

The immigration judge, Tara Naslow, agreed.

“I’ve heard testimony. I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent, and very little evidence presented by the government in any of this,” Naslow said.

BOSTON — A U.S. court ruling in Massachusetts has temporarily paused the looming termination of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Somalia.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs’ ruling Friday said there would be “weighty” consequences if Somalia’s TPS designation were allowed to expire Tuesday. Advocates filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking to pause the termination after the Trump administration promised to end the designation last month during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many Somalis live.

“Over one thousand people will face ‘a myriad of grave risks,’ including detention and deportation, physical violence if removed to Somalia, and forced separation from family members,” the ruling said.

Burroughs said implementing an administrative stay and deferring ruling on the postponement gives both sides time to file briefs on the emergency motion.

“While the stay is in effect, the termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the ruling said, noting that those with TPS status or pending applications will retain rights including eligibility for work authorization and protection against deportation and detention.

In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the ruling is the latest example of a judge preventing Trump from “restoring integrity” to the U.S. immigration system.

“Temporary means temporary,” the statement said. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status. Allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. The Trump administration is putting Americans first.”

Representatives of the plaintiffs fighting the termination said in a statement that even though the order is temporary and “many battles lie ahead,” they are “heartened by the interim protection today’s order affords all Somali people in the U.S. who have TPS or pending TPS applications.”