source: Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed in northern Ohio this year as President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up legal pressure in immigration cases, breaking with decades of precedent and leaving some people jailed for months.
Most of the 17 lawsuits filed in federal court in northern Ohio have challenged a tactic used by the administration that claims immigration judges have no authority to grant bond to those arrested.
Judges in Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown have rejected the administration’s arguments and either ordered that immigration courts hold bond hearings and in some cases ordered people’s outright release from lockup.
Here’s a look at every immigration related lawsuit filed in 2025 and where each case stands.
Cristobal Camilo Laguna Espinoza
Laguna Espinoza argued that he was denied the opportunity to argue for bond after he was arrested on June 11. U.S. District Judge J. Philip Calabrese tossed out the case six days later because Laguna Espinoza didn’t wait for the conclusion of his appeal in the Board of Immigration Appeals, the next step in appealing an immigration judge’s decision.
Laguna Espinoza fled Nicaragua in 2018 because he feared reprisals for participating in protests against President Daniel Ortega. He has no criminal record.
Saul Morales Chavez
Chavez had lived in the United States for more than 20 years before he was arrested while returning to Little Rock, Arkansas, from a vacation to Puerto Rico. Chavez is married, owns his home, pays taxes, has a job and has two daughters who are U.S. citizens. He also has no criminal history.
Government attorneys argued that the immigration judge had no authority to give Chavez bond and that he must be detained.
U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi called the government’s arguments flawed and ordered that an immigration judge hold a bond hearing.
E.V. and M.F.E.
Two women, only identified in court filings as E.V. and M.F.E, were arrested and detained even though they had come to the United States on a 2024 program called the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela Humanitarian Parole program. They were arrested when their car broke down driving through Ohio.
U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson stopped expedited deportation proceedings and ordered that the two get a chance to argue for bond in immigration court. Shortly after, the two women were released from custody.
Jose Rodriguez Mendoza and Guillermo Acevedo Diaz
Rodriguez Mendoza is from Honduras and lived in Canton, where he was an active member of St. Francis of Assisi parish. He’s a husband and father of two children and arrived in the United States in August 2023. Acevedo Diaz was a police trainee in Colombia and has been here since December 2023.
Both were initially detained but released with orders to check in with ICE. Both were arrested again in August. Mendoza was picked up during a workplace raid, even though he had work authorization. Diaz was arrested while leaving a hearing in Cleveland immigration court.
U.S. District Judge Pamela Barker ruled they must first go through the Board of Immigration Appeals and dismissed the case with the opportunity to refile the lawsuit after the board makes a decision.
Leanny Sorelbis Hernandez Torrealba
Hernandez Torrealba is from Venezuela and lived in Columbus since 2022. She was arrested after a court hearing in Cleveland.
She was a police officer in her native country, but fled to the United States after being harassed because she was lesbian and because she disagreed with her colleagues’ politics.
She ultimately gave up on the lawsuit and her immigration court case and agreed to be deported.
Mario Monroy Villalta
Monroy Villalta was arrested twice by ICE agents. He was released on bond after his arrest in February but was arrested again in May. The second time, he was held in custody without the ability to argue for bond.
He had no criminal record, and his mother was a green-card holder who lived in Cleveland.
He ultimately voluntarily requested to be deported, court records say.
Abdoulaye Ba
Ba fled Mauritania in 2023 after he was arrested and tortured for protesting the theft of his family’s land, the lawsuit said.
He was initially allowed to remain free from custody but was arrested July 9 after a hearing in Cleveland Immigration Court. He had work authorization and worked at an electronics manufacturing company in Florence, Kentucky.
Ba sued after he was denied a chance to argue for bond. The case was dismissed by Calabrese on the grounds his board of immigration appeals were not finalized.
Robin Leiva Lemus
Leiva Lemus was arrested in Akron after coming to the United States from Honduras. He had special juvenile legal status to remain in the country through Summit County Common Pleas Court because he had been abused. He applied for a green card but was arrested by ICE in September, his lawsuit said.
His case is pending in front of Lioi.
Amadou Tidjane Niang
Niang fled Mauritania in 2023 after he became the target of harassment by police officers and others because he helped hide activists fleeing from police in his tailor shop.
He was arrested by ICE after an immigration court hearing on Aug. 12. He signed a letter that said he voluntarily agreed to be deported, but signed the letter without an interpreter present and without knowing what the document said, according to his lawsuit.
Barker dismissed the case, saying that his Board of Immigration Appeals case needed to be decided before the lawsuit could move forward.
Jonas Nsungi Mbonga
Mbonga of Cleveland Heights was arrested on Aug. 12 during a check-in with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. He had been allowed to live in the United States since 2018 on the condition that he check in regularly with authorities.
The lawsuit was filed after government officials tried to launch emergency deportation proceedings against Mbonga.
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster found that immigration officials failed to follow policies and never gave Mbonga a reason for revoking his supervision. He ordered Mbonga released from jail.
“We live in a country where the rule of law is paramount, and it is the province of the federal judiciary to ensure that the government obeys the law, particularly when it chooses to deprive someone of their liberty,” Polster wrote.
Marcello Gonzalez Lopez
Gonzalez Lopez, a native of Guatemala, lived in the United States for 27 years before his June 12 arrest. He has been jailed since because government attorneys argued that immigration court has no ability to grant bond.
He has no criminal history. The lawsuit said that Cleveland Immigration Judge Jeremey Santoro indicated during the hearing that he would have granted a $10,000 bond to Gonzalez Lopez had he been authorized to do so.
Pearson, the federal judge in Youngstown, granted Gonzalez Lopez’s request, noting that he did not have to wait for his immigration appeals case to be finalized. She ordered immigration court to hold a bond hearing.
Another immigration judge, Jennifer Riedthaler-Williams, later ordered Gonzalez Lopez to remain jailed because he previously used a fake ID and failed to appear for court hearings, according to court records.
Brenda Gisela Melendez Mejia
Mejia is a mother of two and, as of Nov. 7, was pregnant. She was arrested in Indianapolis and ordered deported. She appealed the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Her lawsuit says that ICE violated its own policies of detaining a pregnant woman and seeks a release from custody.
No decision has been made in the case. The case remains pending before Judge James Knepp II in Toledo.
Walter Gonzales Salazar
Salazar is blind in one eye and has 20 percent vision in the other. He was arrested on Oct. 7 and has an infant son who is a U.S. citizen.
He’s been in the United States since 2018 with orders to regularly check-in with ICE. He was arrested Oct. 7 during a check-in. Salazar’s lawsuit is seeking his release from custody.
The case is pending before U.S. District Judge Charles Fleming.
Eduviges Martinez Hernandez
Martinez Hernandez was arrested on Aug. 20 after making a wrong turn in Detroit and getting stopped at a checkpoint between the U.S.-Canada border, according to her lawsuit. She has been held in custody ever since, without a bond hearing. She’s requesting that she is released from custody or given a bond hearing.
Martinez Hernandez has been in this country since 1998 and has two children — one a U.S. citizen and the other a legal resident through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Her case is pending before U.S. District Judge David Ruiz.
Parwinder Kaur
Kaur lived in Zanesville since January 2024 after leaving India because she was beaten and threatened with an honor killing for being in a relationship that crossed religious and caste lines, her lawsuit said.
She had a pending case in immigration court but was arrested after a hearing on Sept. 15. Kaur, who has no criminal history, was denied a bond hearing and has been held in the Mahoning County Jail ever since, the lawsuit said.
The case is in U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko’s court.
Jaber Hilmi Hammouda
Hammouda, a Palestinian, has been in the country since 2005 and is married to a U.S. citizen. He was convicted in federal court of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and ecstasy in 2019 and was ordered deported to Israel.
He was unable to be deported within a six-month span and was released with orders to check in with ICE. Hammouda complied, including when he was told to check in on June 3, when ICE arrested him. He has been in jail since.
His attorney argued that the ICE office in Brooklyn didn’t properly get authority to arrest Hammouda and that he should be released. The case is pending before Pearson.
Iran Damaris Echavarria Morales
A native of Mexico, Echavarria Morales has been in the U.S. since 2002, most recently living in Dallas, Texas. She has five children, all U.S. citizens, including one who is currently serving in the U.S. Army. That son petitioned for parole in place, a legal status, for his mother, the lawsuit said.
