The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has criticized a federal judge in Washington for freeing a transgender migrant from detention, asserting that the judge succumbed to activist demands in making her decision.
Tricia McLaughlin, an Assistant Secretary at DHS, expressed that U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio, appointed by President Joe Biden, neglected legal procedures and endorsed “gender ideology fanaticism” by allowing the release of the migrant, a transgender woman seeking asylum in the United States.
DHS identifies the migrant as “Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez, a male illegal alien from Mexico,” who entered the U.S. in 2023 and was freed under the Biden administration’s policies.
Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez entered the country in 2023 and was released under the Biden administration. (Department of Homeland Security)
“The President made it clear on Day One: DHS will not buy into radical gender ideology when detaining illegal aliens,” McLaughlin said.
Martinez-Velasquez is claiming asylum after allegedly being abducted and raped by cartel members in Mexico.
The migrant was arrested outside a Portland courtroom last month and transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. and held there for over 40 days after a judge granted the government’s request to dismiss the asylum case.
The nonprofit Innovation Law Lab, whose attorneys represent Martinez-Velasquez, decried the fact that Martinez-Velasquez was being held at a men’s facility.
Martinez-Velasquez’ attorneys filed a habeas petition, a legal motion asking the court to review whether the detention was lawful, saying they were not aware of their client’s location after the migrant was taken into custody.
Under due process standards, especially in asylum cases, attorneys must be able to locate their client and ICE is required to notify or justify sudden detentions and transfers.
In Martinez-Velasquez’s case, the judge found that ICE’s failure to provide timely, specific information about the migrant’s location and legal status violated fundamental procedural fairness.
The judge had also demanded to know why it was deemed immediately necessary.
One of the migrant’s attorneys, Stephen Manning, of Immigrant Law Group, previously told OPB that Martinez-Velasquez was processed into the Tacoma detention center, but he had not been granted access to her since her transfer. Martinez-Velasquez was identified only as “O-J-M” in court documents.
An aerial view of detainees exercising in an outdoor recreation area at the Northwest ICE Processing Center (David Ryder/Getty Images)
“They threatened to kill her because O-J-M is a transgender woman,” her habeas petition states, per OPB. “Fearing for her life, she fled and sought asylum in the United States in September 2023,” Manning said.
Manning told Willamette Weekly that his client had not committed a crime while in the U.S. and had regularly checked in at ICE offices as instructed.
Oregon sanctuary laws prevent it from having long-term immigration detention facilities, and — aside from temporary holding cells at the Portland ICE office — the nearest immigration detention center is the Tacoma facility.
