Yaa’kub Ira Vijandre, Filipino-American Journalist and Activist Wrongfully Detained by ICE, Files Habeas Petition Seeking Immediate Release
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 27, 2025
CONTACT:
James Woo (Atlanta), Director of Communications, media@advancingjustice-atlanta.org
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – Today Yaa’kub Ira Vijandre, a Filipino-American journalist and activist unjustly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) since October 7, 2025, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia seeking his immediate release from the Folkston ICE Processing in Folkston, GA. He is represented by Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta (“Advancing Justice - Atlanta”), Lee & Godshall-Bennett, LLP, the Muslim Legal Fund for America, and Project TAHA.
Yaa’kub has lived in the U.S. since he emigrated from the Philippines at age 14 in 2001. He was granted status under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) in 2013. He has been an outspoken advocate for the rights of Palestinians and political prisoners and has become a well-known photojournalist in the Dallas, Texas area where he has lived for the last four years.
In September 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) sent Yaa’kub a notice stating that it intended to terminate his DACA status because it views statements he has made on social media opposing mistreatment of prisoners as statements in support of terrorism. On October 7, 2025, Yaa’kub was arrested at gunpoint outside his home and transported to ICE custody at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Texas, and then to the Folkston ICE Processing Center in South Georgia.
In his habeas petition, Yaa’kub is challenging his detention as a violation of his constitutional rights to freedom of speech and due process.
“ICE’s decision to detain Yaa’kub was based on nothing more than his statements on social media about matters of significant public interest and concern, in clear violation of his First Amendment rights,” said Samantha Hamilton, Staff Attorney with Advancing Justice-Atlanta. “If someone who has legal immigration status and has lived in this country for over 20 years can be at risk of detention and deportation based solely on their constitutionally protected expressive activity, it should serve as a wake up call for everyone in this country, regardless of status.”
Yaa’kub is currently detained in the building formerly known as D. Ray James prison. The Folkston ICE Processing Center expanded into the D. Ray James complex earlier this summer, bringing the total number of beds at the facility to about 3,000, which makes it the largest ICE detention center in the nation. Combined with the Stewart Detention Center, the Folkston ICE Processing Center’s expansion has made Georgia an epicenter of immigration enforcement and detention, providing infrastructure for the government to carry out anti-immigrant policies, including mass deportations. Advancing Justice - Atlanta stands against the expansion of the immigration detention and deportation machine across the country, and especially in the South.
Eric Lee and Chris Godshall-Bennett of Lee & Godshall-Bennett, LLP said, “DHS arrested a DACA recipient at gunpoint and threw him in detention because of his free speech activity opposing unlawful ICE detention and abusive prison conditions for those accused of terrorism. As a result of this activity, he himself is now accused of terrorism and finds himself sharing cell space with some of the very same individuals whose arrest by ICE he was protesting in the streets just weeks ago. Beyond the element of cruel irony this case presents, it also must be a wake up call for all Americans: Trump is expanding the definition of terrorism to include a broad range of speech with which the administration disagrees. If the administration can detain a DACA recipient for his social media posts and advocacy, who else might be the targets of this ever-widening dragnet?"
“The Supreme Court has long held that political speech occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values. The Trump administration’s retaliatory detention of Yaa’kub Ira is therefore not only unlawful and profoundly un-American, it threatens to unravel decades of Supreme Court precedent,” said Maria A. Kari, attorney and executive director at Project TAHA. “For years, Yaa’kub has used his camera and social media to bear witness to state violence from the prison cells of Bagram and Guantánamo to the mass graves of Gaza’s children. Apparently, nothing frightens this administration more than a man with a camera and a platform. We condemn the government’s unchecked weaponization of immigration detention against those who dare dissent, and we call for the immediate release of Yaa’kub Ira.”
Marium Uddin, Legal Director at the Muslim Legal Fund of America said, “In keeping with Sam and Maria’s comments, I echo the sentiment that ICE needs a reminder: a camera and a notepad are not threats to public order. Since when did the Constitution stop at ICE’s doors? We will continue to fight until Yaa’kub is free and this government is held accountable for its unlawful and retaliatory actions.”
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Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI), and other marginalized communities in Georgia and the Southeast.
