23-05-2025
ICE has held a Maine resident in jail for 8 months. The ACLU says that's illegal.
May 23—Immigration officials have held a Maine man in jail for more than eight months, offering no indication when he'll go to court or get out, according to a petition filed on his behalf in court.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine is asking a federal judge to release Eyidi Ambila. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Ambila, 44, at the Cumberland County Jail since Sept. 23, following a short criminal sentence Ambila served there for two misdemeanor convictions.
Ambila has no idea how long he'll be held, the ACLU said. He has received no updates on the status of a 90-day custody review by ICE or what they want from him.
"The government cannot lock you up without any sort of explanation or expectation," said ACLU staff attorney Anahita Sotoohi. "Yet that's what they've done."
Ambila was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and moved to the United States when he was 7 years old, according to the petition. His family was granted asylum because they were at risk of political persecution. The ACLU said Ambila received a green card and a Social Security number.
Today, Ambila says his entire family is in the U.S., including his father, stepmother, siblings and his own three children, whom he provides for and who are worried by his indefinite detention.
"I have a strong family unit," Ambila said in a statement provided by the ACLU. "Being removed from them has been traumatizing for us all, especially my children."
The ACLU also argued Ambila is stateless. The Democratic Republic of Congo has no records of Ambila, the ACLU said, and the Department of Homeland Security was unable to get travel papers for Ambila when it tried removing him in 2007, following a felony conviction in 2005 (Ambila's petition doesn't elaborate on the nature of the felony).
Ambila was released from incarceration and subjected to an order of supervision until 2024, during which time he reported regularly to ICE and complied with all of the government's efforts to obtain travel papers from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Petitioner has cooperated fully with all of ICE's efforts to remove him," the petition states. "Specifically, petitioner has made repeated, failed attempts to obtain a Congolese passport and travel documents necessary for his removal."
Sotoohi said the number of ICE detainees at the Cumberland County Jail has increased dramatically this year. The ACLU said there were 70 people being held in Portland by ICE, as of Friday.
The ACLU is challenging Ambila's petition using a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, invoking a legal principle that broadly protects people from unlawful imprisonment.
Petitions are filed for habeas corpus in all kinds of situations, not exclusively those involving immigration. When a judge shared plans earlier this year to release criminal defendants who have been denied a lawyer, she was ruling on a class-action habeas corpus petition.
Sotoohi said this process is "an incredibly valuable tool."
"It's going to the absolute heart of due process," she said. "The government cannot detain you based on speculation. ... (That's) something for all of us."
Yet this principle has come under fire recently by the Trump administration. The president's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters earlier this month that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion" and that they were "actively looking at it" depending on how immigration-related habeas cases are ruled on in court.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrongly told members of Congress that she believed the habeas process was used to "remove people from this country."
Ambila's case is one of at least two petitions filed on behalf of someone in ICE custody in Maine. On May 14, the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project filed a habeas corpus petition for Gedeon Mboko. A copy of his petition was not publicly available through online federal court records.
ILAP Director Susan Roche said in a statement Friday that her organization filed a petition for Mboko to prevent ICE from transferring him outside Maine and away from his lawyers.
Roche said the cases were timely, given a bill lawmakers will consider next week to prohibit Maine jails from voluntarily holding people for ICE.
"ILAP urges the Maine Legislature to pass it," Roche said. "In this current environment with the federal government disregarding due process, LD 1971 is even more critical to protecting the rights, safety and lives of Maine residents."
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maine said in an email Friday that it is reviewing the ACLU petition and it was too early to comment further. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Noem and ICE Field Director Patricia Boyd are named as respondents.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce, who is named as a respondent in Ambila's petition, said his lawyers were reviewing the case.
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