It\u2019s been nearly two months since the 45-year-old Rubio \u2014 a New York City Council data analyst from Venezuela who is seeking asylum \u2014 was\u00a0surprised to be\u00a0detained<\/a>\u00a0Jan. 12\u00a0during what was supposed to be an asylum interview at a nondescript office building on Stewart Avenue in Bethpage<\/a>, one of 11 asylum offices in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n A federal asylum office is located on second floor of building at 1065 Stewart Avenue in Bethpage. Credit: Newsday\/James Carbone<\/p>\n In an arrest authorized by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement suboffice\u00a0in Central Islip, Rubio was taken into custody and shuffled that day from Bethpage to the Nassau County jail in East Meadow to upstate Goshen and the Orange County jail, according court filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n WHAT NEWSDAY FOUNDRafael Rubio, a Venezuela native who works for the New York City Council, is jailed in a Brooklyn lockup while his lawyers ask a judge to free him.At issue is his Temporary Protected Status, a program President Donald Trump wants to terminate for Venezuelans and others.Rubio was\u00a0detained in January at an asylum interview in Bethpage, processed in East Meadow before being moved to other jails.<\/p>\n Rubio, who says he is fleeing persecution in his native Venezuela, is one of hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals from whom President Donald Trump and his administration are seeking to strip Temporary Protected Status<\/a> and any work permission. The administration has also moved to terminate TPS for immigrants from Yemen, Haiti, Myanmar, Somalia, Honduras and other countries.<\/p>\n Rubio is now at the Brooklyn federal jail, the\u00a0Metropolitan Detention Center<\/a>, that houses the deposed Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, the accused UnitedHealthcare\u00a0CEO assassin Luigi Mangione, drug cartel bosses and others, a place with a long history of brutality<\/a>, maggot-infested food<\/a>, power failures<\/a>, staffing shortages, lack of medical care<\/a>, and heat and light outages<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the help of Rubio\u2019s lawyers and employers at the New York City Council<\/a>, where he has worked since last year, a habeas corpus petition has been filed at federal court seeking his release. He could be locked up for months or years, the petition says, unless a court intervenes.<\/p>\n The case is pending before U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York\u00a0John P. Cronan.<\/p>\n At issue in Rubio\u2019s habeas case is whether he has valid TPS status and whether the government should be able to detain him. Rubio\u2019s lawyers say he has valid TPS and cite a favorable California case; the Trump administration and Department of Justice, represented by\u00a0Chibogu Nneka Nzekwu,\u00a0says Rubio\u00a0doesn\u2019t have TPS and cites a ruling by a higher court.<\/p>\n In a separate proceeding, immigration judge Charles Conroy, who works for the Trump administration, declined to release Rubio, saying he failed\u00a0to show he isn\u2019t a “danger to society,” according to published reports<\/a>.\u00a0In early February, Conroy, who has one of the city’s lowest rates of granting asylum<\/a>, sided with a government lawyer, who cited Rubio\u2019s since-dismissed criminal case involving a dispute with his roommate.<\/p>\n Rubio has been in and out of the United States since 2012, according to a petition filed last month by the Central Islip ICE office’s acting assistant field director, Tony Petito, who cited visa records.<\/p>\n Rubio was supposed to depart in 2017 but failed to do so by the deadline, Petito wrote, according to records in the habeas case.<\/p>\n Beginning in 2021, Petito wrote, Rubio filed requests for TPS, which were repeatedly granted.\u00a0Petito wrote that in March 2023, Rubio was arrested and accused by the NYPD of assault as\u00a0a misdemeanor and harassment, a violation. Both charges were dropped and his arrest record was sealed, according to records in the habeas case. Rubio’s lawyer said Rubio wasn’t at fault in the altercation.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772878991_34_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
![\"Matthew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772878991_73_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n