ICE re-detained Sheboygan Falls mother at routine check-in despite prior court-granted cancellation of removal

On March 10, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement re-detained Elvira Benitez-Suarez, a 51-year-old mother of four U.S. citizen children from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, during a routine ICE supervision check-in at the agency's field office in downtown Milwaukee. Benitez-Suarez had lived in Wisconsin for 35 years after fleeing sexual assault and domestic violence in Mexico as a teenager, and had no criminal record. In December 2025, an immigration judge in Cleveland had granted her cancellation of removal, finding that deporting her would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to her two youngest U.S. citizen children, and set her on a path toward a green card; she was released and had fully complied with every subsequent ICE check-in.

The Department of Homeland Security appealed that ruling, and her attorney, Marc Christopher, said no statute required ICE to detain her while the appeal was pending, calling her arrest unsupported by any legitimate public safety purpose. ICE transferred Benitez-Suarez through a detention facility outside Chicago before holding her at the Campbell County Detention Center in northern Kentucky. It was the second time she had been detained by ICE; her first detention, resolved by the December 2025 ruling, had already drawn public attention.

In a statement to Wisconsin Watch, an ICE spokesperson said "being in detention is a choice," arguing Benitez-Suarez could leave custody by agreeing to self-deport. Christopher said officials told him they had no idea where she would be transferred, calling it "a frightening statement" that raised due-process concerns, and said the renewed detention separated a mother from children a federal immigration judge had already found would suffer extreme hardship from her removal. Benitez-Suarez's new attorney filed a federal habeas corpus petition on her behalf in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Updates

2026-05-21 — Immigration judge granted Benitez-Suarez $1,500 bond [3]

An immigration court judge granted Benitez-Suarez a $1,500 bond, days after a federal appeals court ruled against the mandatory-detention policy DHS had relied on to hold her without a bond hearing.

2026-05-27 — Benitez-Suarez released from ICE custody on bond [4]

Benitez-Suarez was released from the Campbell County Detention Center after posting the $1,500 bond, having spent nearly three months in ICE custody during her second detention.