A longtime Detroit resident and father of five U.S. citizen children was released from immigration detention on Wednesday after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully denied him due process.
Juan Manuel Lopez-Campos, who has lived in the U.S. for 26 years and has no criminal record, was arrested during a traffic stop in June and held for more than two months without a chance to seek bond.
The ACLU of Michigan took up his case and sued on his behalf. In response to the suit, U.S. District Judge Brandy R. McMillion ruled that the Trump administration’s new directive to deny bond hearings is “not only wrong but also fundamentally unfair.”
Lopez-Campos walked free Wednesday.
“I am happy to finally be with my family with the help of my legal team,” Lopez-Campos said in a statement. “I hope to continue to fight my case.”
The Trump administration’s directive in July attempted to reverse decades of policy by eliminating access to bond hearings for immigrants facing civil detention. If left in place, the directive would have subjected immigrants to mandatory detention without judicial review, a process that can take months or even years, legal experts said.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of others still being wrongly denied what Juan just experienced: the opportunity to fight your immigration case from home,” Ramis J. Wadood, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan, said. “Because of that, we will not rest until every affected individual is allowed to exercise the same right to due process and has a chance to come home to their families.”
Lopez-Campos’s attorney, Shahad Atiya, who worked with the ACLU on the case, said the government had “no legitimate reason” to keep him locked up.”
“The cruelty was the point, but we’re glad that justice prevailed,” Atiya said.
Lopez-Campos was one of more than 1,400 immigrants who were arrested by federal agents since President Donald Trump took office in January. Most of them had no criminal convictions.
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This article appears in Sep 3-16, 2025.
