'Unconstitutional detention': ICE must 'immediately' release immigrant who was detained after calling 911 to help save someone else's life, judge says

A federal judge in Maine has ordered the Trump administration to "immediately" release a Chinese man who was detained by immigration agents after trying to stop someone from committing suicide.

The 13-page order comes as another in a long line of district court cases rejecting outright controversial efforts to reshape how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) classifies immigrants in order to detain them.

In the case, the petitioner, Chaoyi Wu, won habeas corpus relief by convincing U.S. District Judge Stacey D. Neumann, a Joe Biden appointee, that his detention was a violation of the due process guarantee under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The petitioner entered the country near Hidalgo, Texas, in November 2021 and was quickly placed in expedited removal proceedings and ordered to be deported. Then, later that same month, he was paroled for "humanitarian purposes related to the Covid-19 pandemic," the court explains.

"Following the expiration of his parole on November 12, 2022, the Government took no action to re-detain Mr. Wu for over three years," the order notes. "During this period, Mr. Wu built a life in the United States, married an American citizen, and filed an asylum claim which remains pending."

Then, late last month, Wu was with a group of friends in Maine and "called emergency services to assist a person attempting suicide."

That phone call landed Wu in immigration detention.

"Upon arrival, local police requested Mr. Wu's identification," the order goes on. "Despite the life-saving nature of the call, once Mr. Wu's noncitizen status was disclosed, police chose to contact U.S. Border Patrol (USBP). USBP subsequently took Mr. Wu into custody, characterizing him as a 'flight risk' based on an alleged failure to update his address…Later that day, ICE issued a warrant of removal/deportation."

Neumann, however, suspects the aforementioned address issue was actually a failure of translation because that statement was "obtained without the assistance of a translator despite Mr. Wu's limited English proficiency."

On Feb. 20, Wu's attorneys filed his petition for the writ of habeas corpus, alleging constitutional violations under the Fifth Amendment.

The government, conversely, claims he is validly detained under a July 2025 policy instructing all agents to deny bond for anyone who entered the country without "inspection," in a memo that has since opened the floodgates of litigation.

Under the terms of the policy, such immigrants are to be detained "for the duration of their removal proceedings" unless granted parole — a rarer form of release. In real terms, however, the Trump administration has made clear such detentions are intended to be indefinite.

Over the past nine months, in hundreds of district court disputes, judges have considered the interplay and applicability of two distinct Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) statutes that outline the government's detention authority. Many judges have rephrased those statutes using language from a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Samuel Alito.

In short, the government claims ICE has the authority to subject immigrants to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. §1225(b), which applies to "aliens seeking entry into the United States."

Conversely, advocates for immigrants — as well as most judges who have ruled on the matter — have instead turned to 8 U.S.C. §1226(a), which applies to "aliens already present in the United States."

In her Friday order, Neumann does not break with the trend.

"The core of this dispute, however, is not whether the Government could have detained Mr. Wu in 2021, but whether it may summarily re-detain him in 2026 after a four-year period of law-abiding, peaceful presence in the country," the order reads.

The judge says the basic fact of Wu's humanitarian parole lapsing does not create "a temporal loophole that requires summary physical custody years after the fact." And the government's own behavior over the past several years undergirds this result, the court adds.

"[The government] can provide no explanation for the three-year delay in his arrest," Neumann goes on. "During that interval, Mr. Wu did not live in hiding; indeed, he actively engaged with the immigration system by applying for asylum. Furthermore, the Government's decision to issue a new warrant following Mr. Wu's arrest at the scene of the 911 call, indicates an understanding that he is subject to discretionary, rather than mandatory, detention."

To hear the court tell it, the mandatory detention statute is wholly inapplicable in Wu's case. Instead, the court found that the only detention authority available in the case is the same statute that governed the earlier determination Wu should be deported – 8 U.S.C. §1231. And, since he was released after that determination, the petitioner has obtained a liberty interest.

The court explains, at length:

Numerous district courts have recognized that an individual possesses an imputed liberty interest once the Government has exercised its discretion to release them into the community. As a court in the Eastern District of California recently observed, the initial decision to release an individual creates "an implicit promise" that the individual's liberty will be revoked only upon a failure to comply with the conditions of release.

"The law compels the same conclusion here: the grant of discretionary parole in 2021 established a protected liberty interest for Mr. Wu that persisted beyond the parole's automatic termination,"  Neumann continues.

The court's analysis then dovetails a rejection of the §1225(b) argument with an endorsement of the §1231 line of thought.

"Having 'passed through our gates' and lived as a member of the community for over four years, Mr. Wu is no longer 'seeking admission' in the sense of a stranger at the border; he is an individual entitled to the full protections of the Due Process Clause," the judge concludes.

The judge goes on to note that any mandatory detention authority under §1231 has "long since expired" in the petitioner's case.

"[T]he ninety-day removal period began on the date Mr. Wu's removal order became final: November 4, 2021," the order goes on. "Because he was not removed within that window, any subsequent detention must be discretionary rather than mandatory."

But, the court notes, the government has treated Wu like he is in mandatory detention – and subsequently deprived him of his rights.

"Here, Mr. Wu's immediate release is appropriate to remedy his unconstitutional detention," Neumann finds.