Dressed in a black suit and a cream-colored cowboy hat, 18-year-old Raul Gomez-Eudave stood outside the Northwest ICE Processing Center on Monday afternoon.
For him, the hat carried deep significance.
“It has my saint on it,” he said.
Inside, hidden from view until removed, is an image of Saint Jude, the patron saint of desperate situations.
As he stood outside the detention center, he waited for his mother, Micaela Eudave, to walk free. A judge had ordered her release on bond that morning after weeks in custody at the detention center in Tacoma.
Eudave, an Othello business owner, was granted release on a $4,000 bond after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested her on Feb. 8. Her sudden arrest left her son, a student at Othello High School, to manage their family’s food truck, Tacos Michoacan, while coping with her absence.
Erin Hall, attorney at Global Justice Law Group, said Eudave was told by ICE agents that she had a prior ICE order of removal, which prompted her arrest.
After reviewing Eudave's records, Hall said Eudave had no prior deportation order under her name. Still, Hall said Eudave was nervous about what the judge’s decision would be.
“I know her son, as well, has been very anxious and was almost in tears yesterday talking to me about it. He's just very overwhelmed with trying to handle everything on his own without his mom,” Hall said.
With the bond granted, Hall said all of Eudave’s future hearings in Tacoma will be cancelled and rescheduled for the Seattle Immigration Court, part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review within the Department of Justice, which has jurisdiction over all cases in Washington and individuals who are not detained.
Eudave’s future court proceedings at the Seattle Immigration Court will determine if she will be allowed to remain in the United States.
“I hope the other detainees continue to have faith, because God is always with us,” Eudave said upon her release.
Gomez-Eudave echoed his mom's sentiment, wishing the best outcome for all the other detainees inside the detention center who might be awaiting bond approval or a response on their case.
Eudave’s case highlights a broader issue playing out in the Tacoma Immigration Court, where detainees face significant barriers to securing bonds. Last week, a lawsuit filed by Northwest Immigrant Rights Project claims the Tacoma Immigration Court’s policy of refusing to consider bonds for all people because of their legal status is unlawful, according to court documents.
Aaron Korthuis, attorney for the project, said this has been happening for the past couple of years.
“The immigration judges at the detention center have been saying, ‘Hey, if you entered without inspection, it doesn't matter what else has happened. You are subject to mandatory detention, and you don't have any opportunity at all for a bond,'” Korthuis said. “This is entangling people who have been here for months, years, even decades or more at times, and have their entire lives, their entire family here, work in Washington's agriculture sector or its construction industry.
“These people are being ensnared in a situation where they can't have any opportunity to get out of detention simply because maybe a long time ago, they entered the country without inspection.”
The Executive Office for Immigration Review didn’t immediately respond to request for comment. ICE said they don’t comment on litigation proceedings or outcomes.
Hall said she had a bond practice but discontinued it about two years ago after judges started denying bonds. And because it was never certain which judge you’d get, there was a good chance there would be no possibility for a bond, she said.
"I believe that Judge Tammy Fitting is still authorizing bonds for people, as long as they can prove two things — they're not a flight risk and that they're not a danger to the community,” Hall said.
Fitting was Eudave’s judge for her bond hearing, she added.
She said a “flight risk” can be based on several things, but is a term used in court to describe a person who is likely to flee the area to avoid criminal prosecution.
“But people that are lower flight risks, for example, like Micaela, have an opportunity and are eligible to apply for an application for relief,” Hall said.
Referenced in the lawsuit, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data distribution organization, reports that in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, bond was granted in only 3% of cases at the Tacoma detention center, the lowest grant rate in the country.
So far this year, TRAC data shows that 13 bond cases have been granted, 126 have been denied, and 65 cases have been withdrawn at the detention center.
“We're hoping that, especially now, with an increase in the amount of people that are being detained in the interior of the United States, that this can ensure that practice changes, and these people do have a chance to seek freedom,” Korthuis said.
