ICE and Orange County Jail unlawfully detained Venezuelan student without charges for 18 days

On January 7, 2026, Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrested Javier Gimenez Rivero, a Venezuelan high school student living in Orlando's Orange County with a pending asylum claim and a valid federal Employment Authorization Document, and jail officials booked him into Orange County Jail on an ICE immigration hold despite no criminal charges, warrant, notice to appear, or hearing. (The arrest itself is disputed in the reporting: the judge's order identifies the arresting agency as the Orange County Sheriff's Office, but the Sheriff's Office told FOX 35 it was actually the Florida Highway Patrol that made the arrest; FHP did not explain why troopers detained someone with no criminal charges.)

Jail officials held Rivero for 18 days — well beyond the 48-hour limit set by the jail's own Memorandum of Agreement with ICE — by "rebooking" him under a new booking number each time the 48-hour clock lapsed. Orange County Corrections confirmed the rebooking practice to FOX 35 and said it was driven by ICE's arrest volume exceeding the jail's processing capacity. At the time, 372 inmates were held in the jail on ICE holds, 49% of them with no local charges of their own, indicating the practice extended well beyond Rivero's case.

Updates

2026-01-21 — Judge granted habeas petition, ordered release, threatened DOJ sanctions [1, 3, 4]

U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. orally granted Rivero's habeas corpus petition on January 21, 2026, ordering his immediate release and enjoining the defendants from re-arresting him for at least ten days; he issued a written order explaining his reasoning on January 26 and entered final judgment on January 27. Dalton found the ICE hold supplied no independent lawful authority: the government had invoked 8 U.S.C. Section 1225(b), which applies only to people seeking entry at the border, rather than 8 U.S.C. Section 1226, which governs immigrants already living in the U.S. and requires an individualized bond hearing. Calling the government's legal position "insupportable on all fronts" and warning it "appears to deliberately mislead the Court about the law and the record," Dalton ordered U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe and Assistant U.S. Attorney Joy Warner to show cause why they should not be sanctioned.

2026-02-04 — Orange County ended ICE rebooking practice, capped detainee housing [6]

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings notified ICE that, effective March 1, 2026, the jail would stop rebooking ICE detainees under new booking numbers to extend their stays past the jail's booking-period limit, and would cap the number of detainees held without local charges at 66 men and 64 women.

2026-03-19 — Judge admonished DOJ attorneys but declined to impose sanctions [1, 5]

Ruling on the show-cause order, Dalton admonished Kehoe and Warner for their handling of the case but declined to impose formal sanctions. He rejected their explanation that a heavy caseload of habeas petitions caused them to omit contrary legal precedent, writing that "the U.S. Attorney blaming 'unprecedented' times for the recent subpar practice rings hollow," and that government attorneys "have a duty of candor to the Court independent of their duties to their client."

2026-04-21 — Commissioners voted to end ICE housing under county's inmate agreement [7]

Orange County commissioners voted unanimously to terminate the section of the county's Intergovernmental Support Agreement covering ICE detainees, moving ICE housing to a separate Basic Ordering Agreement that requires release after 48 hours unless ICE has taken custody or filed to extend the hold.