Las Vegas lawsuit challenges no-bail detention for immigrant detainees

Ricardo Torres-Cortez, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Nov 5, 2025

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LAS VEGAS – Two men being held by immigration authorities were misclassified by the Department of Homeland Security in a way that doesn’t allow them a chance to bail out as their cases proceed, a break in a decades-long established practice, a federal lawsuit filed in Las Vegas alleges.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and UNLV’s Immigration Clinic, which are representing the plaintiffs, filed the complaint Thursday.

The class-action lawsuit is challenging DHS policy change from earlier this year that has wrapped up hundreds of migrants in mandatory detention, who otherwise would’ve had a chance to post bail, according to a Tuesday news release.

“For decades, individuals detained inside the U.S. by immigration enforcement were entitled to seek release on bond,” the release said. “The new policy, implemented nationwide earlier this year, provides that anyone who entered the U.S. without inspection will be held in mandatory detention with no opportunity for a bond hearing.”

‘Keep as many people in custody as possible’

Widespread implementation of the policy — which typically applies to migrants taken into custody at the border — “is being applied to all civil immigration detainees” across all immigration courts, the lawsuit alleges.

“As a result, DHS is currently arresting numerous people within Nevada and unlawfully detaining them in jails without any possibility of release and without any due process protections,” the complaint said.

The complaint argues that federal judges already have “overwhelmingly” rejected the policy’s interpretation. The DHS did not reply to an inquiry seeking comment.

“The federal government is now upending decades of its own practice in order to deny immigration bond hearings to people, not because they’re dangerous or a flight risk, but to keep as many people in custody as possible, hoping that prolonged detention will force them to give up on fighting their removal,” said ACLU of Nevada Senior Staff Attorney Sadmira Ramic in the release.

Defendants named in the suit include the Las Vegas Immigration Court, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, and their agencies.

Two men fighting detention

Both Mexican nationals represented in the suit, Victor Kalid Jacobo-Ramirez, 30, and Edgar Michel Guevera-Alcantar, 27, were arrested in Las Vegas in recent months, and then ended up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, according to the complaint.

Jacobo-Ramirez entered the country as a child and was a Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals recipient until 2024, the lawsuit said.

He was arrested on suspicion of DUI in mid-August and then taken into ICE custody, the complaint said.

Appearing in immigration court in early September, a judge granted him bond because he wasn’t a flight risk, the lawsuit said. Two days after he posted bail, he was again taken into ICE custody during a check-in appointment.

Guevara-Alcantar, who was a recipient of a U visa for victims of crime granting him deportation protection, was arrested on allegations of domestic battery on Aug. 24, the suit said.

Prosecutors declined to charge him for the battery charge, but he still was taken into federal custody, the lawsuit said.

The class-action complaint seeks to protect hundreds of people in removal proceedings, and future detainees.

“Our staff and student attorneys have been encountering countless people who, under the law and under consistent government policy until a few weeks ago, would have been released. We have already taken some cases to court and prevailed, as have other attorneys,” said UNLV Immigration Clinic Director Michael Kagan in the release.

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