This case challenges the arbitrary termination of protection against deportation for young people who have been abused or neglected by their own parents and the detention that results.

Fernando Carranza Chuqui is an 19-year-old high school graduate who works in construction in New York. He also has Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a humanitarian visa for young people found by a court to have been abused or neglected by their own parents. When Fernando received SIJS, the government dismissed his ongoing removal proceedings to permit him to apply for lawful permanent residence.

A young person with SIJS is supposed to be immediately eligible for lawful permanent residence. But a government backlog in applications means thousands of young people with SIJS, like Fernando, are still waiting to receive permanent immigration status. So under a government policy called deferred action, these young people cannot be removed for a renewable period of four years while they wait for lawful permanent residence.

But in July 2025, immigration officers arrested Fernando without a warrant while he was on his way to work from home. They detained him at the notorious Buffalo Federal Processing Center in upstate New York. They reopened his removal proceedings, terminating his deferred action. And they told Fernando that his detention is mandatory because he is an applicant for admission to the U.S., even though he has resided here for years.

What is the legal argument in this case?

The government terminated Fernando’s deferred action without providing any notice of the reasons why or opportunity for him to respond. This violated procedural due process under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment and was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Fernando’s detention also violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause because the plain language of 8 U.S.C. §1225(b), the mandatory detention statute for applicants for admission, does not apply to him, a U.S. resident of many years. So his detention without a bond hearing denies him due process.

The U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, and immigration regulations, require that an immigration officer conducting a warrantless arrest have reason to believe the person he arrests is violating the immigration laws or is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. At the time of his arrest, Fernando had SIJS and deferred action and was traveling from his stable home address to his stable work address, where an officer would have been able to find him at a later time. Therefore, no officer could hold a reasonable belief that Fernando was violating immigration laws and that he was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained.

What is the status of this case?

Pending in the district court.