This case challenges the U.S. government’s policy of indefinitely detaining people who have won immigration relief from deportation after a finding that they will be persecuted or tortured if deported to their countries of origin.

Jaba Pataraia is a 33-year-old native of Georgia and citizen of Georgia and Russia. After becoming involved in political organizing in Georgia, including opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, agents of the Russian and Georgian regimes targeted him for his activism, resulting in a severe injury to his spine. In the United States, an immigration judge concluded that he qualified for a form of protection from deportation called withholding of removal, available to people who are more likely than not to be persecuted or tortured if deported to their country of origin.

Yet more than 10 months after winning his immigration case, Jaba remains locked in Louisiana’s notorious Winn Detention Center, a facility infamous for abusive conditions, confirmed by a years-long record of reports by federal investigators, lawmakers, detained people, and their advocates. The U.S. government has failed to identify any third country willing to accept him and previous attempts to remove him to three other countries have failed.

Since at least the year 2000, the United States has had a longstanding policy of releasing people from immigration detention immediately following a grant of withholding of removal, absent exceptional circumstances. But in 2025, the government began systematically violating that policy, making survivors of persecution and torture by foreign governments like Jaba the victims of indefinite and arbitrary detention by the United States.

What is the legal argument in these cases?

Jaba’s indefinite detention violates the U.S Constitution’s Due Process Clause for at least two reasons. First, because there is no there is no significant likelihood of his removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, his detention serves no rational purpose. Second, even if the government is keeping him detained to pursue removal to a third country, by refusing to tell him which country, it denies him notice and an opportunity to seek protection from removal.

The government’s refusal to abide by its longstanding policy concerning release of people granted withholding of removal is also arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act.

What is the status of this case?

Currently pending before district court of the Western District of Louisiana.

August 19, 2025