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by\u00a0MARGARET KADIFA<\/a><\/strong> August 30, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_2245-scaled-e1752279066999-780x520.jpg\")
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Help grow our newsroom<\/strong>, joining the hundreds of San Franciscans who support us by giving below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donate today!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A U.S. District Court judge signaled on Friday that she may release six women in ICE detention near Bakersfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the latest move in attorneys\u2019 attempts to fight back against the routine arrests<\/a> of Bay Area asylum-seekers after they attend regular court hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a rare case of San Francisco-based lawyers filing an asylum petition for immigrants in detention after being transferred from the Bay Area to remote facilities elsewhere in the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter<\/strong> below.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 2,000 people have been detained<\/a> by Immigration and Customs Enforcement across Northern California, Hawaii, and U.S. territories in the Pacific. Once immigrants are in detention, it is difficult for them to find a lawyer to file a petition for their release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On late Friday, a federal judge, Jennifer L. Thurston with the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California<\/a>, signed an order stating that the petitioners \u201clikely can demonstrate that their circumstances warrant the same relief\u201d the court has offered to other immigrants in a similar situation: a temporary restraining order that releases them from detention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thurston gave the government a chance to respond to her order. She could order the women released as early as next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The petition late Friday was the first attempt at large-scale release of women out of the Mesa Verde detention center, near Bakersfield, California, said immigration attorney Jordan Wells. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wells, along with colleague Victoria Petty of the Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, filed the habeas corpus petition<\/a> on behalf of the women, arguing that the arrests and detentions violated due process rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent weeks, lawyers have had success in getting immigrants released from detention by filing habeas petitions, but mostly before those immigrants leave San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Friday, for instance, attorneys were able to release five of the six asylum-seekers<\/a> Mission Local<\/em> saw arrested in Judge Patrick O\u2019Brien\u2019s courtroom Thursday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When asylum seekers are arrested in court, they are typically processed at an ICE field office two floors up from the immigration court at 630 Sansome St<\/a>. They are held there for hours or a few days, until ICE finds a bed for them in a longer-term detention facility. There are no such facilities in the Bay Area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally, habeas petitions had to be filed based on a person\u2019s current location, so an arrest sets off a rush for attorneys to figure out who was taken and file a petition before they are transferred out of 630 Sansome St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The overwhelming majority of people arrested following court hearings tracked by Mission Local<\/em> do not have a lawyer, and often require a lawyer to file the petition for them pro bono.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If they are transferred, San Francisco-based lawyers have to refile the petition in the defendant\u2019s new location. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If a lawyer cannot pinpoint the detainee\u2019s location, or the petition is filed too late, that person slips through the cracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, one of the six women included in this habeas corpus petition by the Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights was arrested alongside two others from the same courtroom on Aug. 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those three, a 20-year-old asylum seeker from Colombia, was released on a habeas corpus petition within days<\/a>, because he had friends with him in court who immediately contacted Wells. The other two are still in detention in facilities in California and Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt reflects the reality,\u201d Wells wrote, \u201cthat the legal services community doesn\u2019t have the resources and real-time info to keep pace with ICE\u2019s campaign of dragnet arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three of the six women included in the petition late Friday were arrested following administrative hearings in their asylum cases at San Francisco immigration court, at either 630 Sansome St. or 100 Montgomery St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mission Local<\/em> was in court and witnessed two of the arrests on July 18<\/a> and Aug. 1<\/a>. Another woman, a San Francisco resident, was arrested on June 30. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other three women were arrested at check-ins with ICE or at their homes, according to the habeas corpus petition, filed by Wells and Petty on behalf of the six women. Two of them live outside of the San Francisco Bay Area: in Fresno and Eugene, Oregon, according to the petition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’re a small, independent, nonprofit newsroom<\/strong> that works hard to bring you news you can’t get elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2025, we have a lofty goal: 5,000 donors by the end of the year \u2014 more than double the number we had last year. We are 20 percent of the way there: Donate today and help us reach our goal!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Donate!<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n margaret@missionlocal.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m covering immigration. My background includes stints at The Economist in print and podcasting as well as reporting from The Houston Chronicle and elsewhere.More by Margaret Kadifa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lawyers file habeas corpus petitions after a detainee is moved from S.F. by\u00a0MARGARET KADIFA August 30, 2025 (MissionLocal.org) Read Mission Local often? Help grow our newsroom, joining the hundreds of San Franciscans who support us by giving below. Donate today! A U.S. District Court judge signaled on Friday that she may… Continue reading ![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mission-local-logo-300x300.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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