ICE detained South Sudanese refugee Nyamuoch Duoth for months past her final removal order despite no country willing to take her

By June 26, 2026 — six months after her removal order became final — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had held Nyamuoch Thomas Duoth, a lawful permanent resident and South Sudan-born refugee, past the point at which continued detention is presumptively unlawful absent a significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, with no country willing to accept her and no evidence in the record that ICE had made any progress toward deporting her.

Duoth arrived in the United States as a refugee in 1994 at age four and became a lawful permanent resident in 1995. After criminal convictions between 2008 and 2017, an immigration judge ordered her removed to South Sudan or, alternatively, Ethiopia in September 2020. ICE released her from custody in May 2022 after determining there was no significant likelihood it could remove her to either country in the reasonably foreseeable future.

In March 2025, ICE detained Duoth again, asserting a renewed likelihood of removal. Her removal order became final on December 26, 2025. Six months later, the presumptive-reasonableness period under governing due-process law had run with ICE providing no evidence of progress toward deportation, and it continued to hold her at the Pottawattamie County Jail in Council Bluffs regardless — the point this entry records as the abuse. She remained in ICE custody for another three weeks past that threshold before a federal court intervened.

Updates

2026-07-16 — Federal judge ordered Duoth's immediate release [1]

Duoth sued ICE, DHS, the U.S. Attorney General, and the Pottawattamie County jail administrator, seeking her immediate release. The Department of Justice, representing the federal respondents, told the court only that officials were "actively working" toward removal to a third country, without describing any specific action taken. U.S. District Judge Stephen H. Locher of the Southern District of Iowa ruled without a full evidentiary hearing that this was insufficient, writing that the government's reliance on Duoth's decade-old criminal history to justify continued detention was "hard to take seriously" given she had lived in the community without incident for years afterward. He granted her writ of habeas corpus and ordered ICE to release her within 24 hours. The government notified the court of compliance on July 17, 2026, and the court entered judgment for Duoth on July 20, 2026 [2].