ICE agents stopped and arrested Hesler Asaf Garcia Lanza while he was walking to the LIRR in Hempstead, New York

On January 3, 2026, ICE agents in Hempstead, New York, stopped Hesler Asaf Garcia Lanza while he was walking to the Long Island Rail Road. Before arresting him, ICE administratively revoked his deferred action status and work permit — despite his pending Special Immigrant Juvenile status application — and then used the revocation as the basis for detention.

Garcia Lanza's attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition challenging both the revocation of deferred action and the resulting detention. His case attracted attention as one of the first in the region to test whether ICE could manufacture detention authority by revoking discretionary immigration benefits immediately before an arrest.

Updates

2026-03-03 — Judge Brown vacated ICE's revocation of deferred action, ordered work permit returned [3, 4]

Judge Michael Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York granted Garcia Lanza's habeas corpus petition, vacated ICE's revocation of his deferred action, and ordered his work permit returned. Judge Brown found that ICE had engaged in a pretextual abuse of power, stating that the agency's administrative revocation was deployed to justify the detention rather than reflecting any genuine change in Garcia Lanza's immigration status or conduct.

2026-04-08 — Benitez v. DHS filed in EDNY naming this arrest among eight documented instances [1, 2]

Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York, and Covington & Burling LLP filed the class action Benitez v. DHS (2:26-cv-02082) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaint documented this arrest alongside seven others as evidence of a systematic pattern of warrantless ICE and CBP stops and arrests targeting Latino residents across New York City and Long Island based on race and ethnicity.