Maria Murillo and her family were full of hope at the beginning of this week at their Pomona home.
After all, there was a chance — if a Texas immigration judge ruled their way — that her family was about to be reunited.
After a month apart, Murillo’s husband, and the father of their children, was on the cusp of finally coming home.
Until he wasn’t.
Jose Luis Zavala, a gardener, was one of thousands of immigrants swept up last month in President Donald Trump’s massive nationwide immigration crackdown. Now detained in a Texas detention center, his journey halfway across the country is a reflection of many with a now elusive path to freedom.
It’s a path that runs through an increasingly complex federal immigration system, already unclear to many Americans, where attorneys, families and detainees face a pipeline of evolving interpretation of rules and expanded federal authority, claimed by a new presidential administration.
As Zavala’s attorney said: “Be prepared for surprises.”
Those surprises, as Zavala and his family learned this week, could impact how long detainees could be in custody, whether they will remain in this country or rejoin families in the U.S.
For weeks, Zavala and his family have found themselves among the targets of the government’s mammoth legal battle to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally — an effort fueled by relentless reminders by the president and his officials to use federal law enforcement to purge the “worst of the worst” felons from the nation.
For the Trump administration, Zavala’s 20-year-old DUI charge — which had been cleared from his record — and his undocumented status, count him as among the “worst,” despite the charge having been cleared and a record of raising a family, with a job, in the U.S. for years.
Like many, recent weeks have been full of uncertainty, as days turn into weeks in federal custody, and as expanding interpretations of long-standing federal rules cast a shadow over a detainee’s fate.
As his family waited, Zavala was in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s massive expansion of a federal drive that put he and millions in jeopardy of being detained indefinitely.
Against all that, nearly one month after he was apprehended, Zavala took a big step toward walking out of an El Paso detention center, with his eldest son and daughter to fly home to Pomona.
But in a span of 48 hours, joy turned to sorrow after the government applied the brakes, his family and attorneys said.
It’s a glimpse at the kind of turbulence Southern California immigrant families face against a backdrop of a mammoth removal strategy designed to deport millions.
Rewind to June 18: From LA’s B-18 to El Paso
On June 18, Zavala was on his lunch break on a La Mirada gardening job when federal immigration agents converged.
“I’m (expletive)” he texted his wife, but in Spanish.
Within moments, he was ushered into the rear seat of an SUV and taken to the basement of the Edward R. Roybal Building, the downtown Los Angeles ICE detention center where in a facility called – B-18- scores of detainees – fathers such as Zavala, mothers, aunts and uncles — have been taken and processed since raids began all over the region in early June.
It’s the first stop in processing detainees, during which officers verify their identities before transporting them to detention centers. It’s also where their families and lawyers have come in search of their loved ones.
On June 18, Murillo and her daughter were among them. They’d come to see Zavala and give him vital medication for his diabetes. Murillo was lucky to get in after repeated tries, for a fleeting moment with the patriarch of the family of Murillo and their four children.
They left in tears, amid the early uncertainty of the raids blanketing Southern California. What did he do wrong, they wondered? Would he simply be deported on the spot? Would he get any kind of medical care?
For ICE and the Homeland Security, what Zavala did was crystal clear.
“Jose Luis Savala Ramirez was encountered by CBP in 2002 and agreed to return to Mexico rather than face a final order of removal or other penalties,” said Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at DHS Tricia McLaughlin said at the time. “He then illegally entered the country again and in 2006 he was encountered by CBP with falsified immigration documents. Ramirez has a Felony DUI conviction from 2005, but California dangerously created a program in 2021 to dismiss these to prevent conviction as criteria for removal.“
While immigration advocates caution that undocumented immigrants are more deportable if they have a conviction, immigrants have indeed benefited from state laws that dismiss convictions under certain circumstances.
In 2017, California Penal Code §1473.7 took effect, erasing the adverse impacts that very old convictions can have on people.
People could vacate an old conviction or sentence if newly discovered evidence proved their innocence; if it was brought over racial or ethnic prejudice or bias; or if there was prejudicial error damaging an accused person’s “ability to meaningfully understand, defend against, or knowingly accept the actual or potential adverse immigration consequences of a conviction or sentence.”
Echoing the Department of Homeland Security stance, agency attorneys have argued that convictions vacated under the state’s law remain “convictions” for immigration purposes.
About a week after the arrest, Murillo would learn that her husband was being transferred out of L.A. to the detention center in El Paso, Texas.
The uncertainty heightened, now so many miles away.
Expansion of federal rule casts shadow
More uncertainty would come.
That’s when Todd M. Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote employees on July 8 that the agency was revisiting its “extraordinarily broad and equally complex” authority to detain people. It was effective immediately, meaning people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. Instead, now, they cannot be released unless the Homeland Security Department makes an exception.
RELATED: Who’s in ICE detention in California? According to ICE, less than 30% are criminals
The directive, first reported by The Washington Post, signaled a wider use of a 1996 law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free while their cases wind through immigration court.
He told officers that immigrants should be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings.” The action was a huge hit to those fighting deportation, because, according to immigration lawyers, those proceedings could take months or years and could effect millions.
Zavala was among those millions. His attorney, Arturo Burga, knowing his client, Zavala, was requesting a bond hearing at the El Paso federal hub after weeks in detention, was getting worried.
“Yeah. I definitely was concerned. I went from very confident, to ‘oh no. I hope they don’t mention that.”
The July 15 hearing in front a Department of Justice administrative law judge would be a pivotal moment. At stake was whether Zavala could walk out on $5,000 bond. If he loses, he stays in and the government would gain a victory in efforts to deport him. If he wins, the outlook is bright – as release could help him fight in his deportation proceedings – a defense against deportation, his attorney said.
For Burga, the ICE memo was a jolt, despite confidence his client had a strong case.
“I’m like, ‘what is going on? This is going to be so hard to overcome.”
Traditionally, at least in California, clients who were not a threat were released on bond, and could continue their deportation proceedings, with their attorneys and families, all outside of the confines of a federal detention center.
But the government — nationalizing an approach said to become a growing practice among some immigration judges in the nation to jail people for prolonged prolonged periods – appeared intent on doubling down, even on folks who many said are not the hardened criminals — the “worst of the worst” — that officials pledged to deport.
Asked by the Associated Press last week to comment on the memo, McLaughlin said. “The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country — and they used many loopholes to do so. President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.”
The initiative would apply to anyone who crossed the border illegally, and to people who have lived in the country for years, even decades.
But even in the shadow of the Lyons memo, Murillo, back in Pomona, held on to a semblance of faith.
Good news, bad news, 48 hours
Lyons wrote in his memo that detention was entirely within ICE’s discretion, but he acknowledged a legal challenge was likely. For that reason, he told ICE attorneys to continue gathering evidence to argue for detention before an immigration judge, including potential danger to the community and flight risk.
It would come back to Zavala’s case.
On Tuesday, Murillo and her family were preparing for a reunion. Yes, they would reunite with a visibly thinner Jose Luis Zavala, aged by weeks inside two federal detention centers thousands of miles away from each other.
Nevertheless, she and her family could taste the moment when Zavala would hug is 11-year-old again. They were counting the moments until he could see the signs they’d made for his return.
“Bienvenido para de nuevo a casa”! Welcome back home.
Only one thing needed to happen: The Texas judge had to sign off on releasing him on the $5,000 bond. Only then could he get on a plane and go home.
Murillo stayed back home, but two of their eldest children flew to El Paso. Their mission, their hope: Bring their father back.
But this wouldn’t be easy. They’d have to endure a “redetermination” hearing, where government attorneys would bear down, bringing the legal might of a powerful push to deport millions of immigrants, fueled by a president’s pledge to deport the “worst of the worst” and the countless depictions of rapists, the gang members, the murderers.
Zavala felt the full brunt of that might as Department of Homeless Security attorneys focused on his past. But it was a past that been cleared. The DUI charge that the government keyed in on had long been dismissed, Burga said.
According to Burga, the government did not mention the the memo in its arguments — “luckily,” he said.
Burga said the conviction has been dismissed.
The bond hearing happened at 9 a.m. Tuesday. By 11 a.m., the judge had ruled in Zavala’s favor. He would be released on $5,000 bond.
For an anxious family, it was a first moment of pure joy since before June 18, the day when Zavala was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while he was on a job in La Mirada.
“Honestly, we just started celebrating and crying and hugging each other,” Murillo said of the moment the family got word. “Our first reaction was ‘thank God for this.”
Bad news Wednesday
The next day, the reverberations of the government’s expansive policy appeared to be playing out, deflating Murillo’s hopes for her husband’s release.
As Murillo’s daughter worked to finalize the release on the ground in El Paso, she hit a glitch. She had to go online to pay the bond, a practice Zavala’s lawyer said the government is making “everybody” do now. The request bounced back — denied.
According to family and the lawyer, the government had “reserved” the case for appeal.
“In the same way we we so happy the day before, we were back to ‘why are they doing this to us,” Murillo said. “We went back to square one, basically. What’s the point of having a bond, if you can’t get released.”
Because of the government’s intent to appeal, Zavala would stay in custody, at least for 30 more days. If they don’t appeal in that window, he’ll be released in mid August. If the government does appeal, the case will be decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body within the Department of Justice that interprets and applies immigration laws.
That process could take weeks, months, even a year, Burga said.
‘Worst of the Worst’
Zavala’s case is another that has shined a harsh light on the administration’s “worst of the worst” pledge.
Murillo has always acknowledged that back in the early 2000s, her husband initially crossed illegally. She also acknowledged he once had a DUI on his record, back in 2005. But while he was once detained on a charge of DUI, that charge and case was dismissed by a court, Gordo said, adding that he has no criminal record.
But worst of the worst?
“Not everyone of the people detained are criminals,” Burga said. “Mr. Zavala, his record was clean. It’s just the simple fact that he appeared undocumented was the simple reason he got detained.
“I think they are just trying to find different methods of finding their goal of mass deportation,” he said.
But McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, has called the assessment that ICE isn’t targeting immigrants with a criminal record “false” and said that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has directed ICE “to target the worst of the worst — including gang members, murderers, and rapists.”
She counted detainees with convictions, as well as those with pending charges, as “criminal illegal aliens.”
The latest ICE statistics show that as of June 29, there were 57,861 people detained by ICE, 41,495 — 71.7% of whom had no criminal convictions. That includes 14,318 people with pending criminal charges and 27,177 who are subject to immigration enforcement, but have no known criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.
Each detainee is assigned a threat level by ICE on a scale of 1 to 3, with one being the highest. Those without a criminal record are classified as having “no ICE threat level.” As of June 23, the latest data available, 84% of people detained at 201 facilities nationwide were not given a threat level. Another 7% had been graded as a level 1 threat, 4% were level 2 and 5% were level 3.
“The government appears to be doing everything in its power to try to jail people under the authority of the immigration laws,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law.
But the rhetoric is not matching reality, he said.
“Citizens get DUIs and they then receive whatever punishment the criminal legal system deems appropriate,” Arulanantham said. “Nobody is more dangerous because of where they were born. So the basic concept that we need to engage in immigration enforcement to make us safer is kind of at war with the way we know the criminal justice systems works at the most basic level.”
Arulanantham said the majority of people being arrested in this wave of enforcement operations are people who do not have a conviction, or who have minor convictions.
“Given that the Trump administration is saying over and over again that we’re going against the worst of the worst, touting alleged arrests of people with criminal histories in their past … it’s important to note they are not telling the truth about that,” he said.
“That someone committed a DUI 20 years ago does not mean they have to be deported now to make us safe. That makes no sense.”
‘Another waiting game’
Back in Pomona, Murillo reeled from the emotional rollercoaster of a month of starts and stops.
She has hope in her husband’s case and that the judge’s decision will stand. But it’s mixed with concern that the government will find something, some morsel of a blemish that would enable them to deport her husband.
“It’s like another waiting game,” she said. “That’s a whole month to gather information… to look for stuff against him, I really doubt they are going to find. They know he has a possibility to win a case. I’m just scared. They could, out of nowhere, find something and put stuff on his case that could effect him.”
Her 11-year-old appears to be taking the brunt of it emotionally. Murillo said she had to take her to the emergency room about a week after the arrest for a condition that appeared to start with anxiety.
“I have to have the mentality to stay strong for them, but also for him,” she reminds herself, referring to her family.
They are able to talk to Zavala.
The theme in their conversations: “He’s gonna stay strong for us, and hopefully he will be released and we can bring him home.”
For now, the reunion will have to wait.
“We were ready to have a little gathering with the family,” she said. “Make some food for him. My daughter had made big posters of “Welcome Back Daddy. We missed you!”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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