Tucson asylum seeker detained for weeks before DHS reversal

After being kidnapped and tortured by the Maduro regime in Venezuela, Isa Maluenga Avila said she thought she'd find safety in her new life in Tucson, where she's bonded with new friends, gotten married and spoken publicly about her long journey to the U.S.

But despite being lawfully admitted at the Nogales port of entry in 2023, having no criminal record and an ongoing asylum petition, Isa still wasn't safe from masked government agents pulling her into an unmarked vehicle and locking her up for weeks, without explanation, Isa and her family told the Arizona Daily Star.

That's what happened Jan. 26 in Tucson, as Isa was leaving the Bank of America on East Broadway and Wilmot, she said.

"They were hooded and had no identification," Isa wrote in Spanish to the Star on Thursday, using a prison-messaging application from Eloy Detention Center, about 50 miles northwest of Tucson. "I was very scared. I felt like I was being kidnapped."

The traumatizing experience appears to have been the latest in a string of unlawful arrests, from which the Department of Homeland Security has quickly backtracked when confronted with a legal challenge, or the threat of one, according to Tucson immigration attorney Mo Goldman. 

Within days of a federal judge ordering DHS to "show cause" for Isa's arrest and detention, DHS reversed course, filing a motion to dismiss the removal case against Isa and allowing her to be released, Goldman said.

"They knew they were going to lose" the habeas case, said Goldman, whose firm filed Isa's habeas corpus petition in Arizona's U.S. district court on Feb. 2, challenging the legality of her detention.

Isa, who is 41, was released from Eloy Friday, after 18 days in what she called "inhumane" detention conditions, unable to sleep due to her anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Isa is Goldman's third client in two weeks to have been detained by DHS agents, then released after Goldman either filed a habeas petition, or contacted ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations directly, he said.

Advocates say habeas petitions have become a critical constitutional backstop amid DHS's unlawful arrests and detention of immigrants. The petitions are adjudicated in federal court — not in immigration court, which is an administrative body under the U.S. Department of Justice. 

In Venezuela, Isa was a paramedic and firefighter, with the rank of captain. But after her father, then chief of police, released a political prisoner opposed to Maduro, Isa was kidnapped and "brutally tortured" by agents working for Maduro, her family says. Her father helped Isa, and her long-time partner Franklin, escape Venezuela in 2017.

Isa begged her father to come with her, but he stayed behind and was later assassinated, she said.

Isa and Franklin spent years working in the coffee fields in Colombia, before word spread that the Maduro regime was asking Colombian leaders to return Venezuelans as political prisoners, so she and Franklin continued on to the U.S.-Mexico border, crossing the notorious Darien Gap jungle, and later experiencing abuse and extortion by Mexican authorities on their journey, she said.

Isa's three daughters are in a safe country in South America, having left Venezuela due to threats, and Isa has been working to find a way to get them safely to the U.S., her family said.

DHS reversal

ICE didn't respond to the Star's questions about whether Isa was specifically targeted by agents. An agency spokesman confirmed receipt of the Star's questions.

Isa does not have an active removal case against her in immigration court, nor a final order of removal, according to her habeas petition. The petition argued that if DHS wanted to detain Isa again, the agency should have given her an opportunity to contest that in court and provided a reason for her re-detention.

"No circumstances have changed in Ms. Maluenga Avila’s case to justify her re-detention after she had already been released by (DHS) following her initial arrest in March of 2023," the petition said. "Ms. Maluenga Avila is not a danger to the community, nor is she a flight risk. The Department has failed to demonstrate that either of those reasons were the basis for her re-detention, in violation of Ms. Maluenga Avila’s due process rights."

During Isa's brief initial hearing Thursday, held at Eloy's on-site immigration court, DHS's attorney filed a motion to dismiss the deportation case against her. Tucson-based Immigration Judge Kathryn DeAngelis, presiding remotely over the hearing, then ordered Isa's release.

During the hearing at Eloy, Goldman criticized DHS's "inexplicable" arrest of Isa, he said.

"She did everything right. She's not 'the worst of the worst'," he said. "We hope the Department of Homeland Security will do better in the future. ... I want the court to know that now, she has to live in fear of our own government."

DHS has focused its massive government resources on arresting and detaining immigrants who don't pose a public threat, despite claims of arresting "the worst of the worst," advocates say.

In 2025, less than 14% of the 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE — a sub-agency of DHS — had violent criminal records, according to DHS data obtained by CBS News this month.

ICE did not respond to the Star's question about why the agency isn't focusing on the "worst of the worst."

Bounty for arrest?

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Nancy Ellsworth Garcia of Tucson said she considers Isa to be her daughter. They met soon after Isa arrived in Tucson, in March 2023, at a migrant-aid shelter where Garcia was volunteering. Garcia said her immediate bond with Isa felt somehow "preordained."

"I never had children. Her mom died when she was 12. We were meant to be with each other," said Garcia, whom Isa calls "mom." "Of all the thousands of people who came through, many of whom I just loved, she hugged me and it just fit."

Garcia said Isa and her husband have formed deep ties in Tucson, even organizing and playing on a baseball team with other Venezuelans here.

"But they weren’t being hunted at that time," Garcia said. 

Amid reports of escalating ICE enforcement activity in Tucson, Isa hadn't left her apartment in five days, Garcia said. But on Jan. 26, unable to pay her rent electronically, Isa went to the bank, where she was detained.

Garcia received a frantic phone call from Isa that day, putting Garcia "in a panic," before the line went dead, she said. Garcia, her husband John and other friends in Tucson immediately started advocating for Isa, connecting her with Goldman's law firm.

Isa said she believes the arresting agents expected to get a "bounty." They ignored her pleas as they took her into custody, she said.

"The only thing they told me was that I was worth $1,500, and that they didn't care if I was in an (asylum) process, had TPS (Temporary Protected Status) or no criminal record," she wrote from Eloy.

Isa's claim about an alleged $1,500 "bounty" payment echoes other reports of ICE paying agents for arrests. The Los Angeles Times reported in August that a high school student, arrested by masked agents and held in ICE detention, had overheard the agents laughing and bragging they'd get $1,500 for the arrest.

ICE did not respond to the Star's query about the alleged $1,500 payment, nor whether agents get to keep any monetary reward if an arrest was unlawful.

'Inhumane' conditions at Eloy

After Nogales port officials determined she had "credible fear" of return to Venezuela, Isa was lawfully admitted to the U.S. on parole in March 2023. She quickly secured Temporary Protected Status and work authorization, and applied for asylum before the one-year deadline — and before the Trump administration canceled the TPS parole program for Venezuelans, she said.

TPS was a lifeline for thousands who fled the Maduro regime, which was left mostly intact after the Trump administration's January operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Isa said. Her life would be at risk if sent back to Venezuela, she said.

"The true fascist criminals are still in power," she wrote from Eloy.

Isa's release from Eloy on Friday was bittersweet, she said, speaking with the Star by phone as Garcia drove her back to Tucson.

Guards woke her in her cell at 1 a.m. and made her wait all night in a room with iron benches and nowhere to sleep while she was processed. She was released to a Phoenix shelter in the morning.

When Garcia arrived to bring Isa back to Tucson, Isa broke into tears and ran to embrace her, she recalled.

She called conditions at Eloy "inhumane," and said the detention center appears to be underfunded — though in reality, the profits of Eloy's private owner and operator CoreCivic are soaring — due to poor food quality and untrained staff.

"The staff they have are not educated," she said. "They treat us like animals, they treat us like criminals. They have absolutely no respect for us."

Her arrest after following the procedure DHS set out for asylum seekers feels like a betrayal, she said.

"They were the ones who created the CBP One, so it shouldn't be something illegal," she said. "I did everything they asked of me, according to the law. .... I mean, I would like to ask: Where are the criminals that Donald Trump was supposedly going to get rid of here? The criminals are on the street, and the innocent people are in there."

Isa said she still has faith in the United States and believes the Trump administration's "violations of immigration law" are an aberration. She still dreams of bringing her daughters to the U.S., and getting certified as a firefighter to continue her career here.

But Isa intends to avoid going outside for the indefinite future, for fear of being detained again.

"Everyone must be careful until this madness is over," she said.