After nearly two years of effort, a team of students and faculty in the Cornell Asylum and Convention against Torture Appellate Clinic secured the release of a client referred to as “IES,” a reformed gang member who fled multiple cartel attacks in Mexico only to be imprisoned in California.
As a youth, IES joined a gang and was arrested in 2005 for possessing a small quantity of drugs and sentenced to four years in prison. While in prison, he defected from the gang and, following his release, was returned to Mexico. There, his tattooed physical appearance caught the attention of gangs and cartels who attacked him and his family, prompting him to relocate eight times within Mexico. Unable to find safety in Mexico, IES fled back to the United States in 2010. In 2022, IES was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and held at a private prison in California. He applied for asylum and protection under the Convention Against Torture, but his request was denied.
The Cornell asylum appeals clinic, led by students Isaac Belenkiy ’24 and Eva Charles ’24, took on IES’s case. They argued that the immigration judge mischaracterized his 2005 drug offense and failed to properly consider the severe risk of torture IES faced in Mexico. In June 2023, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in IES’s favor, sending the case back for further consideration.
Meanwhile, IES participated in hunger strikes to protest prison conditions, leading to additional advocacy. A pro bono law firm helped secure his release through a habeas corpus petition in September. IES is now home with his family, protected under the Convention Against Torture, and can no longer be deported to Mexico.
