On April 9, 2026, Innovation Law Lab filed a second habeas petition on behalf of Francisco Bernal Bernal, a 47-year-old husband and father of four who has been detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma since November 2025. 

Mr. Bernal has lived in the United States for over 20 years. He is the father of four U.S. citizen children, ages 3, 12, 14, and 16, whom he has raised and supported alongside his wife of fourteen years. He held steady employment at a local construction company for nearly a decade, and he and his wife own the home where they have lived since 2014. On November 8, 2025, as part of Operation Black Rose—a DHS operation involving unprovoked, destabilizing community sweeps throughout Oregon—ICE agents swarmed Mr. Bernal’s car, weapons drawn, while he sat at a gas pump in Beaverton preparing to refuel. The agents presented no warrant, but they pulled Mr. Bernal out of his vehicle and arrested him anyway. He has been detained ever since. 

At Mr. Bernal’s custody hearing, the Immigration Judge issued a one-sentence oral decision, stating: 

“given [Mr. Bernal’s] immigration history and his criminal offense, [pause] and in accord with the new [pause] Board’s caselaw regarding that issue the Court will [pause] give that weight and I am going to find that he is [pause] a danger and a flight risk and I will deny bond.” 

The judge failed to apply any cognizable legal standard or offer a reasoned explanation as to the decision. Months later, the judge issued a brief post-hoc memorandum, which still failed to explain why a single misdemeanor conviction followed by a decade of law-abiding behavior demonstrates current dangerousness or why his deep community ties did not mitigate any perceived flight risk. 

Mr. Bernal’s only encounter with the criminal legal system in his life is a misdemeanor conviction from November 2015, stemming from a domestic violence incident with his wife. He successfully completed all conditions of his sentence, including domestic violence intervention and parenting classes, and his probation was reduced early to bench probation upon recommendation of his probation officer. In the decade since, he has had no further arrests or charges. 

Mr. Bernal’s wife, the victim, submitted a declaration stating she feels safe with him, that there is no pattern of abuse, and that she wants him home with her and their children. But in the brief 12-minute custody hearing, the Immigration Judge never weighed her testimony, let alone the 91-page evidence packet documenting his community ties, his decade of lawful conduct, and his family’s reliance on him.

Immigration detention is not supposed to be about punishing people twice for past mistakes, but it is clear that Mr. Bernal’s incarceration serves no other purpose. It certainly is not about fairness nor justice. Innovation Law Lab has called on the federal court to make this right and bring Mr. Bernal home to his family.