U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin
CHARLESTON – A federal judge has ruled the government again was out of bounds when Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents detained a married couple with pending asylum cases and work authorizations.
In a February 9 memorandum opinion and order, U.S. District Judge Joseph A. Goodwin granted the immigrants’ habeas petition and ordered their immediate release from ICE custody while denying the federal government’s motion to dismiss the case.
Yuri Jhoana Gutierrez Aroca and Arley Cabrera Valenzuela were stopped January 18 along the West Virginia Turnpike by State Police. ICE agents arrived to assist, interviewed the couple and conducted record checks. ICE agents concluded probable cause existed to believe both lacked lawful status and were subject to removal. They were arrested and transported to South Central Regional Jail in Charleston.
Both are from Colombia, and they live in Columbus with their three children. She works at a food truck, and he works for a contractor providing services for correctional facilities.
Goodwin ordered the couple’s immediate release rather than merely ordering a future bond hearing because he said their continued detention is unlawful and no further “process” can cure what is already a statutory and constitutional violation.
“I am not blind to the practical demands of immigration enforcement, including cooperation between state and federal authorities,” Goodwin wrote in his 33-page ruling. “But the Constitution presupposed restraint as the default of lawful authority.
“Stops conducted on the highway without articulable and reasonable suspicion, followed by civil detention carried out in a manner indistinguishable from criminal punishment collapses the very distinction the law insists upon.
“What is plainly missing here is restraint. Without restraint, enforcement becomes arbitrary and unlawful. Courts exist to prevent that collapse.”
The couple filed a civil petition January 27 against South Central Regional Jail superintendent Christopher Mason, acting Philadelphia Field Office Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Michael T. Rose, acting U.S. Ice Director Todd D. Lyons, acting director of U.S. ICE, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Both petitioners had no criminal charges, no warrants, no alleged gang ties and no claimed national‑security risk. They both had attended all prior immigration hearings as required.
Goodwin notes the couple was charged with civil violations and not criminal.
“That distinction is not a technicality or a formality,” he wrote. “It is the line the law draws between regulation and punishment. Yet these two working parents appear in unmistakable prison garb.
“They wear orange jumpsuits, are shackled, and are restrained in heavy chains. They have been kept away from their children, forced to languish in detention hundreds of miles away from where they live and work. They have been confined for days alongside persons accused of or convicted of crimes. They are held without any custody determination or bond hearing.
“This is not what civil enforcement looks like in a humane system of government under law. The Constitution does not permit such cruelty as a condition of civil enforcement. It does not permit the government to strip people of dignity simply because they lack lawful status. It has long been settled that noncitizens, ‘even [those] whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as “persons” guaranteed due process of law.’”
Goodwin says the authority government possesses over immigration does not include “the power to seize liberty first and justify confinement later.”
“Due process is not a courtesy extended at the government’s convenience,” he wrote. “Due process is the condition that makes custody lawful in the first place. Congress itself has recognized this principle by requiring that civil immigration detention be tethered to a lawful custody determination — one that determines whether continued detention is warranted or whether release on bond is appropriate.
“When liberty is restrained without a meaningful opportunity to be heard, the Constitution’s promise is not delayed. It is denied.”
Goodwin says the Constitution assumes a government strong enough to enforce the law but restrained enough “to remember the humanity of the people subject to it.”
“A system confident in its authority does not need shackles and chains,” he wrote. “A just system does not jail civil detainees for days without process and call that order. The Constitution was written to cover even the most difficult cases. It forbids shortcuts. This case arises against that backdrop.”
Goodwin also says the petitioners are “just two of many” people arrested and detained by ICE in the last several weeks while traveling the roads of West Virginia.
“This young man and young woman … are long-time residents and workers who were lawfully released on their own recognizance pending adjudication of their asylum applications,” he wrote. “They have appeared at every required proceeding. …
“At bottom, this case turns on a simple but fundamental principle. In a government of laws, words matter. Statutes derive their authority from the language Congress enacted and not from the government’s improper efforts to expand that language to justify detention without process.”
The ruling says there are no record of information regarding the justification for the initial traffic stop conducted by the State Police. The petitioners’ counsel believed they were stopped “solely because of their appearance,” and the “government offered no evidence or statement to the contrary.”
The couple challenged their continued detention, saying they were being held without the bond procedures federal law and the Constitution require, and the government says the couple should seek bond first from an immigration judge.
Goodwin said several courts across the country have confronted this issue recently, and the judicial responses have been consistent.
“The government’s arguments have been repeatedly rejected as incompatible with established law,” he wrote. “Yet the government continues to advance them here. Given the recurring nature of these disputes, I undertake a careful exposition of the law, not only to resolve the matter presently before the court, but also to provide guidance that may conserve judicial resources in future cases and safeguard similarly situated petitioners going forward.”
The core legal dispute is whether the couple’s detention is mandatory or discretionary. Goodwin says it isn’t mandatory because that law applies only to noncitizens who are both applicants for admission and actually seeking admission. In other words, they’re presently trying to enter the country.
The petitioners already have entered, been processed, released on their own recognizance, obtained work authorization and were living here when they were arrested last month. Goodwin says that means the mandatory detainment does not apply.
Goodwin says the government’s position that the petitioners must first request a bond hearing from an immigration judge is legally flawed, noting a 2025 decision in a Board of Immigration Appeals case that said immigration judges lack bond authority for this class of noncitizens.
He also says the government’s position that this court doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear habeas challenges asserting Constitutional violations “reflects an even more troubling misinterpretation of the law.”
“When pushed to justify this paradox, the government retreats to provisions of the immigration code as if it supersedes the Constitution itself,” Goodwin wrote. “It cannot. At best, the government’s argument is illogical.
“At worst, it undermines the judiciary’s role as an independent branch of government.”
Goodwin noted a time in history when English monarchs jailed their subjects summarily and indefinitely, but common-law courts used the writ as a way to compel the crown to justify its actions.
“We are no longer governed by a monarchy,” Goodwin wrote. “Instead, the executive branch now asserts the power to arrest and detain individuals, asserting that federal courts cannot review those actions. This claim is both legally and historically incorrect.”
Goodwin also says the petitioners have had their Fifth Amendment due process violated, noting civil detention is subject to a three-factor procedural test.
The three-part test – from the 1976 Mathews v. Eldridge ruling – includes private interest, risk of error and government interest. He says the first factor weighs heavily for the petitioners because the importance of their interests is affected by the official action.
As for risk of error, Goodwin says the risk already has occurred because the government was “erroneously detaining” them.
“The government failed to respect the applicable statutes so that petitioners receive proper treatment under the law,” he wrote. “This has prolonged, complicated and impeded the petitioners’ path to proper process with arbitrary obstacles and barriers.”
As for the government’s interest, Goodwin says, as the petitioners argued, the government had “no legitimate interest in refusing to follow its own rules.”
Goodwin also notes similar recent rulings by him and other federal judges in the Southern District of West Virginia.
“This ruling does not stand alone,” he wrote. “In recent days, multiple judges of this district — including this court — have independently considered and rejected the government’s contention that (federal law) authorizes mandatory detention of noncitizens arrested in the interior and placed into removal proceedings. …
“Each court has reached the same conclusion. District courts are not advisory bodies in a hierarchical waiting room. When a district court speaks, its judgment is the law governing the parties before it. The government remains free to seek appellate review.
“But it is not free to disregard uniform district authority and continue imposing custody this court has declared unlawful, treating habeas relief as a routine administrative checkpoint.”
Last month, Goodwin issued a similar ruling in a case of a Venezuelan national who was detained during another similar traffic stop. Court filings show Goodwin has made three similar rulings involving four people in recent weeks, and he has a few more on his docket to be decided soon.
In this case, the petitioners were represented by Jonathan Sidney of Climate Defense Project in Forest Hill and by Leslie Marie Nash and Sarah K. Brown of Mountain State Justice. The federal respondents were represented by Christopher Arthur of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern West Virginia.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 2:26-cv-00057
