{"id":206622,"date":"2026-05-31T03:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/206622\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T03:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:36:07","slug":"judge-orders-ice-to-release-berks-county-grandfather-from-unlawful-detention-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/206622\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders ICE to release Berks County grandfather from \u2018unlawful detention\u2019 | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was produced by the Berks County bureau of Spotlight PA<\/a>, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom. Sign up for Good Day, Berks, a daily dose of essential local stories at spotlightpa.org\/newsletters\/gooddayberks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READING \u2014 A Berks County grandfather was released from an ICE facility on Friday after a federal judge ruled he had been wrongly detained while seeking protection under a humanitarian visa program.<\/p>\n

In the opinion, Judge Stephanie Haines of the Western District of Pennsylvania called Erasmo Zavala\u2019s detention at Moshannon Valley Processing Center \u201cunlawful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zavala was arrested by ICE on his way to work in April, even though he had applied for a U visa, a special federal immigration protection for undocumented victims and witnesses who cooperate with law enforcement. The program offers a pathway to lawful permanent residency to eligible applicants.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the Trump administration in January 2025<\/a> rescinded a \u201cvictim-centered\u201d approach that discouraged ICE agents from detaining immigrants with pending U and T visa applications.<\/p>\n

Zavala applied after helping Berks County law enforcement investigate the murder of his daughter, Selena, in a domestic violence murder-suicide in Reading. During the same attack, Selena\u2019s two-month-old daughter was shot and critically wounded. After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, the child survived, and Zavala and his wife became her legal guardians and primary caregivers.<\/p>\n

“This is a tremendous victory for Erasmo, for baby Selene, and for every survivor who wonders whether coming forward and cooperating with law enforcement will actually be met with protection,” said Bridget Cambria, an immigration attorney at the firm Aldea PJC who is representing Zavala.<\/p>\n

Haines on Friday granted Zavala\u2019s request for a preliminary injunction, noting that he was able to show a \u201clikelihood of success\u201d on the merits of claims and that he will \u201ccontinue to suffer irreparable harm\u201d if he is not released. Haines also wrote that \u201cpublic interest favors\u201d relief for Zavala because Congress intended U visa protections to encourage victims and witnesses of violent crimes to come forward and assist law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Court finds the public interest in this effort is weightier than the deportation of an illegal immigrant who [has] committed no violent crime but has assisted in the investigation of violent ones,\u201d Haines wrote.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services found Zavala\u2019s U visa petition to be \u201cbona fide,\u201d meaning it meets core eligibility requirements and has enough evidence to merit temporary protection while the agency continues to review his case. That makes him eligible for temporary deportation protection and a work authorization.<\/p>\n

A central issue in Zavala\u2019s case was whether he had an enforceable deportation order from 2010. The court sided with Zavala\u2019s defense and agreed that the removal order ICE was using to justify his detention was not valid.<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO\u2026 If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you<\/a> who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was produced by the Berks County bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom. Sign up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-206622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}