A federal judge in Oregon ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement to release an asylum seeker from Mexico known as O-J-M after finding the government violated her rights.

“I order her immediate release,” U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio said Monday afternoon, after more than an hour of questioning the events that led to O-J-M’s arrest June 2, outside Portland Immigration Court.

O-J-M arrived in the United States in 2023 after she said she was persecuted because she is transgender. In a sworn statement, O-J-M added that she was also kidnapped by members of a drug cartel, who sexually assaulted her.

O-J-M attended a required June 2 hearing in her asylum case. While there, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss her case. After O-J-M left the courtroom, several ICE agents arrested her. She’s been held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma for 43 days.

During the hearing, Baggio methodically walked through the nearly two years O-J-M had been in the United States prior to her arrest. O-J-M complied with the terms of her release, including regular check-ins with ICE officials in Oregon.

Ultimately, Baggio said the federal immigration officials engaged in a number of procedural errors. The judge described the federal government’s legal positions to justify O-J-M’s arrest and ongoing detention as “shifting sands.”

Baggio acknowledged the federal government’s significant authority over immigration, at one point during the hearing going so far as to hold up two legal textbooks from her bench as a demonstration of the extent of the government’s powers.

“The problem here,” Baggio said, “the government failed to follow its own rules. They sought to arrest first and justify later and then they changed the alleged basis for the detention.”

Attorneys for O-J-M said they expect their client to be released from the Tacoma facility Monday.

This story may be updated.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/14/o-j-m-portland-oregon-asylum-seeker-immigration-customs-enforcement-mexico/