A federal judge in Utah has ordered immigration authorities to explain why they are still detaining a man whose state narcotics case collapsed after the suspected drugs turned out to be dried pinto beans, finding that his continued custody likely violates federal law and the Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby did not order Lorenzo Chavez Rascon released immediately, but he barred the government from removing him from the country for now, required officials to tell his lawyer where he was being held and ordered the government to show cause by March 12 why his habeas petition should not be granted. The dispute matters beyond one arrest because it sits at the intersection of immigration detention, due process and the government’s authority to hold someone whose criminal case disappeared while his immigration status remained under separate review.
The timeline in the case moved quickly. Shelby wrote that Chavez entered the United States in 2017 as a minor with his family and presented himself to border authorities with an asylum claim. While that case continued in immigration court, he applied for a U visa, a form of temporary immigration relief available to certain noncitizens who cooperate with law enforcement. On Feb. 7, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined that his U-visa petition was bona fide, a step the judge said likely placed him in deferred-action status while he waits in a yearslong backlog. Then, on Feb. 23, Utah state authorities arrested Chavez in connection with what they believed was a drug sale. That suspicion collapsed when the material involved was later identified as dried pinto beans. The state did not charge him with a crime. But while he was in the Salt Lake County Jail, ICE lodged an immigration detainer so it could take custody of him after the criminal side of the case ended.
That shift from a failed state narcotics case to federal immigration detention became the center of the lawsuit. Chavez filed his original habeas petition on Feb. 25, challenging the legal basis for the detainer. While the court was still reviewing that filing, Shelby wrote, the state dismissed the underlying case and ICE took Chavez from the county jail into federal custody. On March 3, Chavez filed an amended habeas petition and an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. At a March 9 hearing, Shelby said, Chavez’s lawyer told the court he had not been informed where his client was being held and had not been given a way to communicate with him. Government lawyers, according to the order, said they were still considering whether Chavez should receive deferred action tied to his U-visa filing, but they could not clearly say why that status would be denied or revoked. They also could not guarantee he would not be removed from the country while the habeas case was pending.
Shelby’s ruling turned on that uncertainty. In a written order issued March 11, the judge said Chavez had shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits of his claim. Shelby wrote that federal detention authority in this setting exists to hold someone pending a decision on removal, but that the Supreme Court has said such detention cannot continue longer than reasonably necessary to secure that removal. Here, the judge said, removal did not appear reasonably foreseeable. He pointed to the U-visa finding from USCIS, the regulation that says qualifying petitioners on the waiting list are to receive deferred action or parole, and the government’s failure so far to identify any removable federal offense or any basis for revoking that protection. Shelby also noted that government counsel said the U-visa backlog could stretch up to 10 years. In that posture, he wrote, Chavez was likely being held indefinitely while still effectively covered by deferred action, something the court said likely violated both the immigration statute and due process.
The order was notable for what it did and did not do. Shelby granted only part of the emergency request. He stopped ICE from deporting Chavez while the case continues. He ordered the government to notify attorney Alec Bracken of Chavez’s location by 3 p.m. on March 10 and to give Chavez meaningful and timely access to communicate with counsel within 24 hours after that notice, and no later than 3 p.m. on March 11. He also ordered the government to file a response by 5 p.m. on March 12 explaining why the habeas petition should not be granted. Chavez may file a reply by 5 p.m. on March 13, and the judge said a hearing will be set after briefing if one is necessary. But Shelby stopped short of directing an immediate release, leaving that issue to the next phase of the case. In other words, the court treated the detention as serious enough to require emergency intervention, but not yet resolved enough to end in a release order on the spot.
The factual record in the public order is narrow, and several important details remain unknown. Shelby did not describe the circumstances that led Utah officers to suspect a drug sale in the first place. The order does not say where Chavez is now being held, beyond the government’s obligation to tell his lawyer. It also does not identify any separate conduct that ICE believes could justify custody despite the collapse of the state case. What is clear is that the government had nearly two weeks after receiving notice of the habeas petition to present such a basis and, according to the order, still had not done so by the March 9 hearing. The judge also wrote that there was no allegation Chavez was “particularly dangerous” to the public or that he had “substantially prolonged his stay by abusing the processes provided to him.” That language matters because it undercut one of the most common arguments for continued detention while immigration proceedings continue.
The case also reflects a broader legal tension over how immigration detention operates when criminal allegations evaporate. ICE detainers are frequently issued after arrests, but Chavez’s lawyers argue the government cannot simply keep him locked up once the state no longer has a case and federal officials cannot point to a lawful, current reason to hold him. Shelby did not decide the full habeas petition, but his order strongly signaled skepticism toward the government’s position. He wrote that “freedom from imprisonment” lies at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause and said Chavez’s alleged lack of access to counsel compounded the harm. The judge also rejected any suggestion that the public interest automatically favored continued detention. While the government has an interest in efficient immigration enforcement, he wrote, that interest does not outweigh likely constitutional violations when removal is not reasonably foreseeable and the detainee has not been shown to pose a specific danger.
What comes next will likely depend on whether the government can produce a clearer legal theory than the one Shelby said it had offered so far. If officials argue Chavez never truly had deferred-action protection, they will have to confront the regulation and the court’s reading of the U-visa process. If they argue the status was or can be revoked, they will need to explain on what grounds. If they instead rely on the existence of a removal order from earlier proceedings, they will still have to answer the judge’s conclusion that actual removal appears too remote to justify continued detention now. The government’s filing may also show whether officials complied with the judge’s separate directives on location notice and attorney access. Those points could shape any future hearing as much as the original arrest, because the court has already framed the case not just as an immigration matter but as a due process dispute.
For now, the public record shows a case that began with an arrest over suspected narcotics, shifted when the supposed drugs proved to be pinto beans, and then widened into a federal fight over how long immigration officials may keep someone behind bars without a clear path to removal. Shelby has not closed that fight. But his order has forced it into the open and placed the burden squarely on the government to explain why the detention should continue.
As of Thursday, March 12, Chavez remained protected from removal under the temporary restraining order while the government’s response on continued detention came due that evening. The next milestone is Chavez’s March 13 reply and any hearing Shelby sets after reviewing both sides’ filings.