By John Burnett, Hawaii Tribune-Herald
Published: Jan. 17, 2026
The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii has filed a petition in U.S. District Court seeking the release of a 42-year-old Captain Cook man who has been incarcerated without charges or bail at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu.
The habeous corpus petition, filed Tuesday in a first for ACLU of Hawaii, alleges Juan Jose Estrada Lopez’s detention without charges or bond is unlawful. Habeas corpus ensures that no person — citizen or not — can be held by the government without the right to challenge their detention before a judge.
A habeas petition is a legal action that asks the court to release a person from unlawful detention.
The respondents to the petition are: Michael Smith, warden of the detention center; Polly Kaiser, acting field director of the Immigration & Customs field office in San Francisco, which has jurisdiction and supervision over Honolulu immigration activities; Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for Estrada Lopez’s detention; and Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.
According to the ACLU, Estrada Lopez came to the U.S. from Nicaragua in 2022 without proper documentation and moved to Hawaii shortly afterward to work at a coffee farm, where he met and married his wife, a U.S. citizen.
Estrada Lopez has no criminal history, according to the ACLU, which said he was taken into federal custody during an application interview for a green card in August.
“They were going through the legal immigration process, which is a very standard petition for a spouse,” Leilani Stacy, ACLU of Hawaii immigration rights attorney, told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on Wednesday. “They thought it was going to be very routine questions about their marriage and that sort of thing. And then he was ripped away. What happens is the couple was separated in that interview, so they were in separate rooms.
“And then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Estrada was not reunited with her husband after that, and Juan was taken into custody and sent to FDC.”
Stacy said that a Homeland Security and Department of Justice policy adopted in July declared that noncitizens who enter the U.S. without inspection are categorically subject to mandatory detention and ineligible to seek release on bond.
“He committed no crime, is being detained for the pure reason that he entered without inspection — and any immigration violation is a civil violation,” Stacy said. “He has no criminal history but is being locked up in the same facility that people who are being charged with federal crimes are. And I would say this is pretty typical in the sense that this is a new policy that the federal administration is taking, that’s different from every administration prior to that for decades, red and blue.
“Previously, these sorts of folks were not subject to mandatory detention, but this new policy means that anyone who’s locked up doesn’t have a chance for a hearing before the immigration court to decide whether they should be let out, whether they’re a flight risk or a danger to the community.”
Stacy said Estrada Lopez’s case is not unique or unusual in Hawaii or across the nation. There are about 80 individuals locked up in Honolulu FDC for immigration issues similar to ACLU’s client, she said.
“His case is very similar to … thousands of cases of individuals who have been detained under this administration across the country,” Stacy said. “And while it might not be as frequent here in Hawaii, we’ve seen the numbers of detentions and arrests skyrocket proportionally here in Hawaii in the past year.”
Estrada Lopez’s wife, Emily Estrada, said in a statement that her husband’s “unexpected detention at our green card interview has turned our lives completely upside down.”
“What we thought was just a routine step in our immigration process has become the most difficult five months of our lives,” she said. “Juan defines himself by his ability to provide, and losing that has been devastating. He’s suffering mentally, emotionally and physically, like any human being would.”
The ACLU’s petition states the couple has been married since March 2, 2024.
Stacy said no court date has been set to hear Estrada Lopez’s petition.
“For us, this is urgent. Every day that the court doesn’t act is a day extra that Mr. Estrada Lopez is detained unlawfully,” she said.