FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2026
CONTACT: media@innovationlawlab.org
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Hadi Hajimohammadidibazar, an Iranian man who fled persecution, was released today from the Torrance County Detention Facility after a federal court granted a habeas corpus petition filed by Innovation Law Lab challenging his detention as unlawful.
“I am excited to go home to my friends,” Hadi said. “I know ICE has a job to do, but it feels like they have reached beyond the laws. I am happy that we can still depend on the rules and laws of this country and that there’s hope thanks to people like my lawyers.”
Hadi fled Iran after protesting the government and converting to Christianity, seeking protection in the United States in 2023. In 2024, an immigration judge found that he would likely face persecution if returned to Iran and ruled that the government was prohibited from deporting him there. Before his detention in June 2025, he was working, attending church, and building a life in Irvine, California.
Despite that legal protection, ICE detained him at a routine check-in in June 2025 – one he attended voluntarily, as he had every prior appointment – and transferred him hundreds of miles away from his community to a remote detention facility in New Mexico with notoriously egregious conditions. The government claimed it was seeking to deport Hadi to a different country but never even identified one or showed any evidence it was actually trying to do so.
“Hadi did everything right, but the government broke the law. ICE took nine months of our client’s life, locking him up indefinitely without any legal basis to do so,” said Rachel Landry, Staff Attorney at Innovation Law Lab. “Hadi should have never been detained in the first place, and the court rightly put a stop to ICE’s unlawful conduct, ordering our client’s immediate release.”
The court found that Hadi’s detention violated constitutional limits set by the Supreme Court, which bar the government from holding someone indefinitely when there is no realistic prospect of their deportation.
“Unfortunately, Hadi's case is not an isolated incident,” said Tiffany Wang, Fellow Attorney at Innovation Law Lab. “The government is detaining people who should be free, warehousing them with no plan, and offering nothing but vague excuses to the courts. When the government ignores the law and restricts liberty, the courts must hold it accountable.”
The case filings are online at https://innovationlawlab.org/case/hajimohammadidibazar-v-ortiz.
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