Overview
- An immigration judge in Tennessee set the minimum $1,500 bond and the bond was posted, prompting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to confirm Elvira Benitez‑Suarez’s release from ICE custody.
- Benitez‑Suarez was detained by ICE in March during a routine check‑in in Milwaukee and had been held at the Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky for weeks.
- A judge ruled late last year that she could obtain a green card after a prior detention following an accidental entry into Canada, but the federal government appealed that green‑card grant and the appeal is still pending.
- Her attorney says briefs in the government’s appeal are due in early June and that a Board of Immigration Appeals decision could take roughly one to 18 months after briefs are filed, leaving her long‑term status uncertain.
- Benitez‑Suarez has four U.S.‑citizen children, runs a local cleaning business and has no criminal record according to her lawyer, and advocates say her repeated detentions — totaling about eight months — highlight family harm and questions about current immigration enforcement practices.