When federal agents arrested Jorge Willy Valera Chuquillanqui as he left his immigration court hearing in San Francisco this summer, they moved him to a 200-square-foot cell that held seven other detainees.
For three days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Valera in the metal-clad room on the sixth floor above the courtroom, according to a declaration he submitted to a judge. There were no beds, and the lights remained on at all hours. Detainees were forced to share a single toilet against the wall.
“They treated us like animals,” the 47-year-old Peruvian man told Bay Area News Group.
On Christmas Eve, five months after Velera’s arrest, a federal judge in San Jose temporarily barred ICE from arresting migrants at immigration courts across Northern California. Bay Area immigration advocates sued to halt the arrests, which they argue force those seeking refuge in the United States to choose between skipping their court dates, increasing their chances of deportation, or attending the proceedings and risking detention.
“This ruling is a critical step in ensuring that immigrants can safely pursue their immigration cases without fear of arrest,” Jordan Wells, an attorney for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a statement.
The decision by U.S. District Court Judge P. Casey Pitts applies to ICE’s San Francisco area of responsibility, encompassing Northern and Central California, as far south as Bakersfield, and Hawaii. Pitts found advocates raised credible claims that the arrests have a chilling effect on court attendance and undermine the immigration court system.
He ordered the ruling remain in place until a final judgment is entered in the case. It’s unclear when the lawsuit could be resolved.
There have been at least 75 documented immigration court arrests in San Francisco, including Valera, and at least 39 in Sacramento, advocates said in an October court filing. It was unclear how many people have been arrested at the Bay Area’s other immigration court in Concord.
Attorneys for ICE argue that a January directive allowing the courthouse arrests nationwide is legal “operational guidance” authorized by the Trump administration. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
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“We are making America safe again and putting the American people first,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement earlier this month. “We have secured the border, taken the fight to cartels, and arrested thousands upon thousands of criminal illegal aliens.”
Valera, the asylum seeker, came to the United States three years ago, leaving behind his wife and young sons after fleeing criminal groups that he says threatened his life in his home country. Valera said he obtained a work permit and that he has cooperated with immigration officials while applying for asylum to remain in the U.S.
But after walking out of his immigration court hearing on July 25, ICE immediately apprehended him. Soon after being taken to the holding cell, Valera said he began to feel half of his body going numb. Handcuffed to a stretcher, he spent the next day under observation at a hospital in San Francisco.
After being taken back to the cell, Valera said he received only small burritos and a chocolate bar at each meal. He and other detainees did their best to keep the area clean, but a small trash can in the corner quickly overflowed. The air conditioning ran constantly, and the men slept huddled together in the cell.
“They made us sleep on the floor in handcuffs,” Valera said.
Now, agents overseeing the San Francisco cells must provide detainees beds, clean clothes, basic hygiene products, medically necessary diets and to dim lights during sleeping hours, among other requirements, following a November injunction secured by advocates in the courthouse arrest case.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on the cell conditions. But government attorneys told the court the agency is complying with the injunction.
From San Francisco, Valera was transferred to a holding cell in Oakland before being flown to a larger detention facility in Arizona. A judge ordered his release about a week later, determining he had been unlawfully detained, attorneys said.
Valera was dropped off at a bus station and used his own money to buy a ticket back to San Francisco for the next day. He booked a motel room, where he took his first shower since his arrest about two weeks earlier.
Despite the ordeal, Valera, who currently rents a space in a home in Daly City, said he plans to continue his asylum case in hopes of making a better life for himself in the U.S. He wants to one day bring his family to join him.
“There are people who have gone through things that are far worse than what I went through, and I don’t wish that on anybody,” he said. “It’s very traumatic, to be honest, and I hope one day this all ends, that it goes back to normal, and that they don’t treat us that way. You come to work, not to commit crimes.”
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