A Trump-appointed federal judge in New York’s Southern District denied a City Council staffer’s request for release from immigration detention Monday, ruling his pending Temporary Protected Status didn’t shield him from arrest and deportation.

Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, a personnel services data analyst for the City Council, has been in ICE detention since mid-January, when ICE agents arrested him at an interview for his asylum case in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Bethpage, Long Island. 

His arrest triggered uproar from New York elected officials, who’ve called for his release. Bohorquez, a Venezuelan native, had been a TPS holder with work authorization but the Trump administration argued they revoked his TPS status when they attempted to end the program last year. 

Many judges in the Southern District of New York have ruled favorably on behalf of immigrants snatched up in the Trump Administration’s deportation dragnet, often ordering their releases within days. 

But Bohorquez’s case was assigned to Judge John Cronan, who ruled in the administration’s favor on Monday, agreeing that Bohorquez no longer had TPS and thus denying his habeas corpus petition for release.

“The Court… concludes that, as a factual matter, Rubio’s TPS has been withdrawn,” Cronan wrote. 

Bohorquez’s attorney, Roger Asmar, had submitted filings in federal court showing he had submitted the required paperwork to extend his TPS in mid-October, with his application still pending. The federal government, however, stopped reviewing those applications shortly after Trump took office. 

Asmar couldn’t be immediately reached for comment on Judge Cronan’s decision. 

“Everyone’s application is still pending, more or less,” said Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National TPS Alliance, which is suing over the Trump Administration’s attempt to end the designation. The matter is slowly making its way to the Supreme Court, and lower courts have ruled the move was illegal.

“Many Venezuelans never received a final decision on their pending TPS application,” Bansal said. She explained that for years the standard practice had been TPS shielded you from arrest and deportation while the extension was pending, because USCIS often took a year to process applications, while the status itself only lasted for 18 months. 

“TPS would be useless if it didn’t work like that,” she said. 

‘A Deeply Unjust Outcome’

At a hearing last month, Asmar had pointed to the case of a different, another Venezuelan TPS holder who was arrested by ICE and freed a week after he sudesude. Before his release, the man, Hugo Alejandro Caldera Ferrer, became friends with Bohorquez when the two were being held at MDC, where ICE began detaining immigrants last year. He joined Asmar in court in support of Bohorquez’s release. 

“The guy is a really beautiful person,” Hugo told a small crowd of reporters after the Feb. 26 hearing, saying that the two came from the same city in Venezuela and that his friend was having a difficult time behind bars. “It’s hard when you’re a good person, imagine tomorrow being in a federal maximum security prison, how would you feel if you were in his position?”

The denial of Bohorquez’s habeas corpus petition is the latest blow in his fight for freedom from ICE detention. Immigration Judge Charles Conroy first denied his release on bond last month, finding he couldn’t prove he wasn’t a danger to society because of a now-sealed arrest for a scuffle with a roommate in 2023. Last week, Conroy ordered him deported, a decision his attorneys have said they plan to appeal. 

Asked about Judge Cronan’s ruling Monday, Council Speaker Julie Menin said she was disappointed, calling it a “deeply unjust outcome.”

“Rafael has had legal authorization to live and work in the United States and did everything he was asked to maintain good standing. He should be home while his immigration case proceeds, rather than suffering a prolonged detention,” she said in an emailed statement. “We will continue to pursue every legal and advocacy pathway available to secure his release.”

Related