Is your loved one currently in ICE custody?
Detention triggers a 24-hour evidence-preservation clock and a 7- to 14-day window to prepare a bond motion. ICE Health Service Corps medical screenings, A-file requests under FOIA, and witness statements all decay rapidly once a respondent is transferred between facilities — and transfers happen often, sometimes from California to Louisiana within 72 hours.
Context & Examples
Why an attorney is essential: A bond packet built in 72 hours with letters of support, equity evidence (deeds, paystubs, tax returns), psychological evaluation of the family, and a signed release plan is dramatically more likely to succeed than one built in 30 days from the inside of detention.
Real example — Eduardo, Mesa Verde Detention Center. ICE picked up Eduardo at a routine ISAP check-in on a Wednesday morning. By Thursday afternoon we had filed a Joseph hearing demand, a bond motion under Matter of Guerra, and an emergency motion to redesignate his charging document because his 2014 conviction was a non-aggravated theft, not the aggravated felony ICE alleged. Bond hearing on day 9. Released on $7,500 bond. He never spent a weekend in Louisiana.
Horror story — same facility, no attorney. A neighbor of Eduardo's was picked up the same morning. He waited 6 weeks for a court-appointed pro bono attorney. By then he had been transferred to El Paso, then Tacoma, then Louisiana. His U.S. citizen wife couldn't visit, his employer terminated him, and his bond hearing was held without his witnesses present. Bond was set at $25,000 — three times what we negotiated for Eduardo with the same equities.
The lesson: The first 72 hours determine the next 18 months.
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