Judge releases detained Venezuelan couple with temporary protected status

A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of a Venezuelan couple who were detained by immigration authorities this month despite having legal authorization to live and work in the United States, calling their apprehensions baseless and unlawful.

At a hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema granted a petition for release filed by the couple, who received temporary protected status after crossing the border illegally in October 2022.

Brinkema rebuked government officials for claiming in court that the couple posed a public threat and ordered both of them released straight from the courthouse.

“There is no reason why they’re being held,” the judge said. Addressing a government lawyer, Brinkema said, “If this was a criminal case … I’d throw you out of my chambers.”

The unusual arrests come amid a Trump administration crackdown on immigration that is testing the boundaries of the law, as well as efforts by the president to end birthright citizenship.

The couple’s case had prompted advocacy organizations to question whether federal officials were undertaking a new strategy to achieve the president’s deportation promises. President Donald Trump’s first administration had in 2018 used the same federal charge – illegally crossing the border – to separate families at the U.S.-Mexico border under its “zero tolerance” policy, and advocacy groups said they were exploring whether that violated a 2023 court settlement banning that practice.

Attorneys for the Venezuelan couple said they were detained March 21 as they were driving in Suitland, Maryland, with their 4-year-old son, arguing that the move was a violation of their temporary protected status and due-process rights under the Constitution.

Another judge in the District of Columbia previously ordered their release after they were first arrested March 10 as they arrived home from their jobs as hotel custodians, with their young children watching. Advocates worried the aggressive move signaled that the administration was again willing to separate parents from their kids.

The Washington Post is identifying the couple by their middle names, Cesar and Norelia, because they have applied for U.S. asylum and have said they fear for their safety if deported to Venezuela. They, their lawyers and family members have denied federal officials’ claims that they have gang ties.

“I knew they hadn’t committed any mistakes, so God had to deliver justice after they were taken away,” said Cesar’s father, Gregorio, who is also being identified only by his middle name.

The Trump administration as soon as next week is terminating all grants of temporary protected status for the approximately 348,000 Venezuelans who have received it. Brinkema said as she issued her ruling Friday that “this may be a very temporary release.”

Norelia grew up in Aragua state, where she met Cesar, who had moved there to attend a military academy, the couple previously told the Post. They left Venezuela amid its deepening political and economic crisis after Cesar deserted his post in the National Guard, settling in D.C. in 2022.

In an interview after their first arrest, the couple said they planned to comply with their reporting requirements, keeping officials abreast of their whereabouts. Gregorio later told the Post that the couple was heading to a car wash in suburban Maryland, with Norelia’s sister and brother-in-law driving in a separate car right behind them, when they were stopped by officials.

“What they did with my son and my daughter-in-law is like a kidnapping,” he said.

The judge’s decision came on the same day that the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for officials to resume use of a controversial wartime authority known as the Alien Enemies Act to speedily deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. U.S. officials cited a different law to detain the couple pending deportation proceedings.

U.S. officials said in a court filing that before marrying Cesar, Norelia had been previously married to a member of Tren de Aragua. In the court filing, an assistant director of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Washington, Erik Weiss, described her as an “affiliate” of the gang and later as a “senior member,” Brinkema said at the hearing.

The declaration itself is under seal. According to Brinkema, Weiss was relaying what Norelia had told U.S. officials in previous interviews. But the only connection Norelia allegedly described having to Tren de Aragua was that previous marriage more than a decade before those interviews, the judge indicated.

“Is somebody an affiliate because he or she is married to a member of the gang?” the judge asked. She later questioned how the government could describe her as a “senior member” and a threat to public safety.

“This is a terrible, terrible affidavit,” the judge said of Weiss’s declaration, describing it as “pure hearsay,” “assumptions” and “putting words in people’s mouths.”

Sirine Shebaya, the couple’s lawyer, said that Norelia has denied having any connection to Tren de Aragua, including through her ex-husband.

The couple has been ordered to attend another federal court hearing in El Paso next month over the illegal border crossing charges from 2022.

But Gregorio said he was hopeful.

“They want to scare us into leaving,” he said. “We’re going to keep working, keep doing everything we’re supposed to do and keep building a future here.”