Irving Lugo Colina, a Venezuelan national detained at North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, challenged his immigration detention after being arrested at an ICE check-in appointment in December 2025. Lugo Colina had previously departed the U.S. under a removal order in 2019, unlawfully reentered in 2022, and was released before his recent arrest. This marked his second habeas petition challenging the same detention after his first petition was denied in March.
Judge Jonker applied the Supreme Court's framework from Zadvydas v. Davis, which established a six-month 'presumptively reasonable period of detention' for immigration removal cases. 'Petitioner's three-and-a-half-month detention, while the government actively pursues removal, is not unreasonable,' Jonker wrote. The judge noted that ICE has submitted pending travel document requests and that Lugo Colina failed to provide evidence that removal is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
The court had previously denied Lugo Colina's first habeas petition on March 2, 2026, ruling that he was subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. ยง 1231 and that neither the 90-day removal period nor the presumptively reasonable six-month period had expired. Lugo Colina filed his second petition just eight days later on March 10, without demonstrating any material change in circumstances.
The denial was without prejudice, allowing Lugo Colina to file future petitions if the government's removal efforts stall. Judge Jonker acknowledged that prolonged detention could eventually become constitutionally impermissible, noting that 'as the period of prior postremoval confinement grows, what counts as the reasonably foreseeable future conversely has to shrink.' The ruling reinforces that immigration detainees must clear a high evidentiary bar to challenge detention before the six-month presumptive period expires.