Texas Federal Courts are Largely Rejecting Administration’s New Interpretation of Immigration Detention Law

By the time Enzzo Enmanuel de Jesus Lopez-Arevelo walked into a Miami immigration courtroom Aug. 8, 2025, his life in the U.S. had already taken several dramatic turns, as detailed by a federal district court case in Texas.

Lopez-Arevelo, a 39-year-old Venezuelan national, had been in the U.S. for exactly three years. He crossed near Calexico, California, in 2022 and was paroled into the country while pursuing an asylum claim after protesting President Nicolás Maduro and drawing the ire of Venezuelan security forces. With a letter of instructions from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he settled in Miami, where relatives lived.

He was recruited by a construction company, where he worked long hours in dangerous conditions, was threatened if he complained and was not paid promised wages. In 2023, he and other workers won a default judgement against the company for trafficking and wage violations. He reported the trafficking to Homeland Security Investigations and Maryland’s Office of Attorney General. Although HSI declined prosecution, the Maryland AG considered him a key witness and successfully obtained “Continued Presence” authorization for him from the Department of Homeland Security which houses ICE. He also applied for a visa for trafficking victims, to supplement a work authorization he already held through his pending asylum claim.

At the Aug. 8 hearing, after a judge dismissed removal proceedings, Lopez-Arevelo stepped into the courthouse lobby and was arrested by ICE agents, placed into expedited removal proceedings and ultimately sent to detention in El Paso.

The government would later argue in a case before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, a President George W. Bush appointee in El Paso, that its recent reinterpretation of longstanding immigration law subjects Lopez-Arevelo — and thousands of other noncitizens like him — to mandatory detention without a bond hearing, even though he has no criminal record. A pro bono legal team of lawyers in the Houston and Washington, D.C., offices of Steptoe is representing Lopez-Arevelo.

Federal district court judges in Texas — from across the political spectrum — are rejecting the Trump administration’s reinterpretation of immigration law in order to detain immigrants without the opportunity to seek bond while they contest the government’s attempts to deport them, even if they’ve lived in the U.S. for decades and have no criminal record.

A hearing in one such case before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is scheduled for Tuesday morning. The case, Victor Buenrostro-Mendez v. Pamela Bondi, et al, will be heard by Judges Edith H. Jones, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, Stuart Kyle Duncan, a President Trump appointee, and Dana M. Douglas, a President Joe Biden appointee.

U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower in El Paso recently sent a notice to lawyers in such habeas cases alerting them to the Fifth Circuit hearing and encouraging them to be prepared for dispositive hearings following the panel’s opinion. Judge Schydlower wrote that as of Jan. 29, his court has 134 such pending cases and receives up to 25 cases weekly.

“The Court anticipates that once the Fifth Circuit issues its opinion, the undersigned may have between 200 to 250 pending cases regarding this issue,” Judge Schydlower’s notice reads. “To ensure prompt resolution of the cases and to avoid the need to await individualized written opinions and rulings, the Court may conduct live hearings in these cases during which the undersigned may rule from the bench on the record, especially if the Fifth Circuit’s resolution of the issue mandates bond hearings in the immigration courts and/or the petitioners’ release. Accordingly, if the Court decides to hold such hearings, out-of-town counsel should be prepared to travel to El Paso to appear live on short notice. Alternatively, out-of-town counsel may retain local El Paso counsel to appear on their behalf.”