He spent 7 weeks in ICE detention. Why his case shows new legal obstacles for immigrants

A Turkish immigrant who fled his country after being tortured is now home with his wife in San Diego after being held for about seven weeks by U.S. authorities. 

Idris Demirtas, 25, was released only after a federal judge in the Southern District of California granted a habeas corpus petition finding that his detention was unjustified. An immigration judge issued a decision in Demirtas’ favor a week earlier, but she made the ruling contingent on a federal court process. 

His arrest at a routine immigration check-in and his 48-day detention reflected some of the Trump administration’s hardline enforcement tactics since the Republican took office a year ago pledging to deport 1 million people per year.

“I did grow a lot through this process, but we lost a lot emotionally and mentally,” said Mae Bovenzi, Demirtas’ wife. “I hope both of our mental health goes back to normal. I feel like we’ve been so misinformed and I’ve seen the constitutional rights that are being stripped away right in front of my eyes.” 

The couple, who married in May, missed their first holiday season together because of the ordeal but they plan to “celebrate in their own way now,” his wife said. She added she was grateful for all the support her family received.

“My body didn’t want to go to sleep last night because I’m afraid I’ll dream I’m back there in jail,” Demirtas said about his first night home.  

Demirtas was arrested on Nov. 20 when he complied with an order to appear at a routine ICE check-in in San Diego at the downtown federal Edward Schwartz courthouse. 

He was among hundreds who were arrested in California last year while appearing at immigration check-ins or court hearings. His background would have made his detention improbable during the Biden administration. He is married to a U.S. citizen and has a pending green card application. He does not have any criminal history, a Department of Homeland Security attorney confirmed during a bond hearing last week. He’s from a country with a human rights record that the State Department has criticized and he arrived in the United States after fleeing religious persecution. He said in court filings he was tortured in Turkey because of his religious beliefs.

Despite that background, and an immigration judge ruling he could be released on bond on Dec. 30, Demirtas remained detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center until the district judge granted his habeas petition and he was released Tuesday night. 

Attorneys are increasingly turning to federal courts to secure their clients’ release because of disruptions to the immigration court system. The Trump administration has fired more than 100 immigration judges nationwide, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges. 

In California, more than a quarter of federal immigration judges have been fired, retired or quit since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.  In San Francisco, at least 12 immigration judges have been fired or left without clear explanations, exacerbating a 100,000-case backlog in the region it covers. 

A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the courts, said her office declines to comment on personnel matters.

‘Unforgiving system’

In July 2025, the Trump administration issued a directive that required mandatory detention for almost all noncitizens who entered the United States without authorization. 

“Based on how unforgiving the immigration system is right now, great people are just giving up,” said Matthew Holt, Demirtas’ immigration attorney. “It’s sad to see it after the generational sacrifices they’ve made.”

Holt and other attorneys have said the new system of detaining more people, and not letting them out on bond or parole is like a “war of attrition,” a military strategy where one side wears the other down by exhausting their resources and morale.

In September, some 7,079 immigration court cases nationwide ended with a voluntary departure, which allows a person to leave the country within a certain time frame and usually carries less penalties than a deportation order. That’s the highest number ever recorded in a single month, according to data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which holds information on cases going back to 1997. For cases in California, that total was 408. 

“I personally have experienced people with meritorious claims, or what could be meritorious claims, before the hearing, before their testimony, say, ‘I want an order of removal. I want to leave. I can’t take it anymore,'” said Jeremiah Johnson, a former immigration judge in San Francisco, who was fired on Nov. 21 by email without explanation. 

Federal judges rule against detention

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment. Previously, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stressed that Demirtas had entered the country illegally. 

“To be clear, having a pending application with USCIS or the possibility of being eligible for a green card does not grant anyone legal status,” McLaughlin said about the case. 

A Department of Homeland Security budget document from 2024 says it costs on average $217 per day for ICE to detain someone in San Diego, meaning U.S. taxpayers paid about $10,416 for Demirtas to be detained before the agency finally agreed to release him. 

Before President Donald Trump’s second term, the federal lawsuits known as “habeas corpus” were not regularly used in immigration cases. “Habeas corpus” is the constitutional right that ensures that people have a chance to challenge their imprisonment in front of a judge.

In 2025, hundreds of habeas cases were filed in the Southern District of California, and thousands were filed for detained immigrants across the country. So far in 2026, about a dozen such cases have already been filed in the Southern District of California, according to habeasdockets.org, a site that tracks such filings. 

Federal judges have been systematically rejecting Trump’s policy of mandatory detention. In one recent filing in the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan noted noncitizens have won their habeas petitions in 350 of 362 cases in federal district courts. He wrote that “160 different judges sitting in about 50 different courts spread across the United States” handed down the rulings.

New postings for ‘deportation judges’

Immigration courts operate underneath the executive branch, not the independent judicial branch that oversees federal courts. The courts are housed under the Justice Department, which gives the Trump administration more authority over immigration judges. Unlike in criminal courts, attorneys are not appointed for those who cannot afford legal representation.

The Department of Justice recently began advertising open positions for “deportation judges,” particularly for employees located in San Francisco, Santa Ana, Sacramento and Los Angeles where applicants are invited to “combat fraud and ensure those seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in our immigration system are not successful.” 

A Department of Justice spokesperson said the effort was aimed at “restoring integrity to our immigration system.” 

“After four years of the Biden Administration forcing immigration courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands of aliens, this Department of Justice is restoring integrity to our immigration system and encourages talented legal professionals to join in our mission to protect national security and public safety,” she wrote in an emailed statement. 

The Trump administration has also temporarily assigned military lawyers to act as judges in immigration cases, which some experts say could violate posse comitatus, the 19th Century law that defines what the military can do on U.S. soil.