Twenty-four pages written in Spanish have become the last hope for undocumented people trying to get out of two immigration detention centers in California. From their cells, and following step-by-step instructions in an information packet, migrants are learning to legally challenge their own detention, avoiding the payment of thousands of dollars in attorney fees that many cannot afford. The document teaches them how to pursue a legal remedy whose origins date back to 1787 and which now stands in the way of President Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportations.

The idea came from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles–based organization. Its lawyers were looking for a way to help the growing number of people arrested in raids and transferred to the immigration jails at Adelanto and Desert View Annex in the Mojave Desert. The idea began to take shape during their visits: they observed that some detainees who had received basic legal guidance managed to obtain their release on bond almost entirely on their own.

“We realized our clients are extremely resilient and smart enough to do this themselves,” says Sarah Houston, an attorney who heads the organization’s rapid response team, in a telephone interview with EL PAÍS. “We gave a nonclient a Q&A consultation; he filed the petition himself and, before being released, helped others fill out their own petitions,” she says.

That led them to produce a guide in Spanish and English, available on the Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s website. It explains how to file a legal procedure known as habeas corpus in court, which requires the government to justify why it has imprisoned a person. The remedy, enshrined in Article I of the United States Constitution, does not distinguish immigration status. “It is the government’s responsibility to prove the legality of the detention. If it does not, the person must be released,” Houston says.

Record number of petitions for release

Habeas corpus has become one of migrants’ main legal tools during Trump’s second term in office. Through this remedy, detainees seek a federal court review of the legality of their incarceration and, in some cases, an opportunity to request release on bond. Since January 2025 more than 65,000 such petitions have been filed, a record figure, according to a tally by investigative outlet ProPublica. The majority have been lodged in federal courts in Texas and California. Courts in the Central District of California alone, which have jurisdiction over the Adelanto and Desert View Annex facilities, have received more than 3,300 petitions since last year, the outlet reports.

The increase has also been evident elsewhere in the country. In December, Arun Subramanian, a judge in the Southern District of New York, said that court had been “flooded” with habeas corpus petitions filed by migrants subject to indefinite detention, despite not posing a flight risk or a danger to the community. Among the cases that reached his desk was that of a 52-year-old Guinean woman, whose petition was granted, allowing her release. “No one disputes that the government may, in accordance with the law, seek the removal of people who are in this country illegally,” the judge wrote in an order cited by the AP. “But the way we treat others matters,” he added.

The Trump administration insists on denying that right, arguing it can suspend it in exceptional circumstances such as an “invasion,” a term it uses to describe the presence of thousands of undocumented people in the country. The policy was adopted in July 2025 but remains blocked by the courts amid an intense legal battle that could reach the Supreme Court.

This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, delivered another setback to the Trump administration by rejecting its attempt to bar bond hearings for detained migrants. With that ruling, the court joined four other courts that have ruled similarly. However, earlier this year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with the current administration’s approach.

“These are very hard times”

In recent weeks, each time they visit Adelanto and Desert View Annex, Immigrant Defenders Law Center lawyers arrive with printed packets that explain, step by step, how to file a habeas corpus and distribute them among detainees. Although they do not keep an exact count of how many they have handed out, they expect they may have distributed “thousands.” The organization is now working to translate the guide into other languages and adapt it for use in federal courts across the country. “We hope more and more people will use it,” Houston says.

Unlike in criminal proceedings, the government does not provide attorneys to people facing immigration processes. Houston explains that very few lawyers take these cases pro bono or for reduced fees, leaving many detainees without any legal representation. “The costs of these services have skyrocketed. There are lawyers charging up to $6,000 to handle a habeas corpus case. That is an unattainable sum for many families, especially when the detained person was the household’s primary breadwinner and, after their arrest, their families barely manage to get by. They don’t have money to hire a lawyer or to pay bond. These are very hard times,” she laments.

For the organization, the urgency is clear. Adelanto, one of ICE’s largest detention centers in the country, has long faced allegations of medical neglect, overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and food deficiencies. Since last year, four Mexican nationals have died after passing through those facilities. With those deaths, the center shares with Krome North in Miami, Florida, the highest number of immigrant deaths in ICE custody during this period.

The guide available on the Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s website begins by explaining what habeas corpus is and who can benefit from it. It is essentially aimed at people who have an open case before an immigration court, were detained during an appointment at an ICE office, or entered the country through CBP One, the app created by the Biden administration to schedule appointments at ports of entry with immigration authorities. The document then explains how to fill out the petition, what documents should accompany it, and even identifies the federal court address to which it must be sent.

Those who do not pursue this route, Houston warns, are trapped between two options: continue fighting their case from a detention center with “horrible” conditions for months or even years, or give up and accept deportation to their country of origin. “If migrants do not file a habeas corpus, it is highly unlikely a judge will order a hearing to evaluate their release on bond, unless truly exceptional circumstances exist. I have seen cases in which it was granted, but one of them involved a detainee with stage 3 cancer,” the attorney explains.