Erick Hernandez was brought to the U.S. from El Salvador 20 years ago when he was 14 years old, his family said. His parents now have legal status in the U.S., and his wife Nancy Rivera said they began the process for him to gain legal status after they got married last fall. His family and attorney said he has no criminal history.

Anibal “Michael” Martinez (23) was born in Nueva Esparta El Salvador. He grew up in a mud house. His family grew corn and beans and hunted with dogs to put food on the table, according to Michael.

O-J-M (24), a transgender woman from Mexico, came to the U.S. to seek asylum in 2023, after she was targeted by a Mexican drug cartel called the Knights Templar because of her gender identity and sexuality. She was abducted and sexually assaulted by members of the gang. After arriving in the US, she was released on conditions that she check in regularly at ICE offices in Medford, OR, where she went to stay with family soon after arrival, and later in Portland, where her asylum case would eventually be heard.O-J-M complied with every order, instruction and condition of her asylum case, even though the immigration authorities entered the wrong hearing date on her paperwork and the agents filed their paperwork late. Despite the mistakes made by ICE in her case, O-J-M got her asylum application on file and showed up early for her court date.During that June 2 hearing in Portland, O-J-M, who had no lawyer at the time and represented herself, was told by an immigration judge that the Department of Homeland Security would not attempt to deport her if she agreed to dismiss her case.It’s a tactic that the U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump has been using to get asylum seekers to inadvertently end their pursuit of asylum protections so the government can then immediately arrest and deport them.“They won’t be seeking to deport you if you agree to this dismissal,” the judge told O-J-M, after confirming with the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, according to a rough transcript of the June 2 hearing.O-J-M agreed to the dismissal, according to the transcript. After the hearing wrapped, ICE agents arrested her outside the court room and took her away via freight elevator.Ariana Garousi, the lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice said she believed the government’s attorney at the June 2 hearing knew ICE agents were waiting outside to arrest O-J-M, despite the attorney and judge affirming she would not be deported just minutes before.Following her arrest, federal officials transported O-J-M to the men’s facility at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. O-J-M, who is a transgender woman, requested solitary confinement for her own safety.Since being detained in Tacoma, federal officials have also sought to have O-J-M sign paperwork written in English without her lawyers present, the lawyers claim. ICE did this despite knowing O-J-M has legal representation, is illiterate and has limited English proficiency, the lawyers alleged.Within hours of being arrested, Innovation Law Lab attorneys filed a petition on O-J-M’s behalf, alleging that her arrest violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee that the government cannot deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process. The petition cites the Refugee Act of 1980, which gives people the right to apply for asylum when seeking safety in the U.S. The petition also states that noncitizens who apply for asylum are entitled to a full hearing in immigration court before they can be removed from the U.S.U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio on Monday ordered the immediate release of a 24-year-old Mexican woman identified in court documents as O-J-M, who was arrested June 2 at the Edith Green–Wendell Wyatt Federal Building following an asylum hearing meant to determine if she could stay in the U.S.The four Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents who arrested her were masked, did not present any charges at the time of the arrest and refused to engage with an attorney trying to talk to them. O-J-M spent more than 40 days in solitary confinement at a Washington detention center.On July 14th, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio determined that the government’s basis for arresting and detaining O-J-M following her hearing on June 2 was unlawful, and that the Department of Homeland Security may have deliberately tricked her into agreeing to conditions during that hearing that allowed them to attempt to expedite her deportation immediately after. Baggio also accused the government of shifting the basis for the arrest and detention after O-J-M obtained legal counsel.“The government here failed to follow its own rules,” Baggio said when issuing her order for O-J-M’s release Monday at the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse in Portland.The government, “arrested first and sought to justify later. Then they changed the alleged basis for the arrest and detention. There is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this, and the government unquestionably went about the arrest and detention of O-J-M on June 2, 2025, in the wrong way.”“Detention’s horrible for everyone,” Jordan Cunnings, one of O-J-M’s attorneys, said after Monday’s hearing. “But as a transgender woman being held by a government that denies the existence of transgender people – she’s been in solitary."O-J-M was released from custody on July 15th. “We are grateful the court recognized that OJM deserves to be free while her case proceeds,” her legal group said in a statement.“No one should be punished for seeking safety.”https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/dhs-slams-judges-release-of-transgender-asylum-seeker-detained-by-ice-agents-in-portland/https://www.koin.com/news/portland/portland-oregon-immigration-courthouse-arrest/https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/transgender-asylum-seeker-released-from-ice-20771050.phphttps://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/07/14/asylum-seeker-taken-by-ice-outside-portland-immigration-court-to-be-immediately-released/#:~:text=Detained%20in%20Tacoma,confinement%20for%20her%20own%20safety.https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-07-15/transgender-asylum-seeker-released-from-ice-custody-following-order-from-federal-judge-in-oregon