Haitian woman detained by ICE was seeking asylum in the US legally. Trump wants to send her back ‘without proceedings.’

Samara Bruno was jolted awake. Her phone was ringing. It was 7 a.m.

“They are taking me! They are taking me!” she heard her sister yell.

Bruno had braced for this call for months, hoping it would never come.

Wisline Platel, Bruno’s younger sister, was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, she would learn. The Haitian immigrant, who was waiting on an asylum decision, was on her way home from an overnight shift at a produce-packing facility and stopped at a gas station in Odenton when a truck blocked the path. Federal law enforcement officers arrested Platel, the driver and another passenger, Bruno said.

“Who is taking you? Where are you?” Bruno shouted into the phone.

The line cut out, but not before Platel dropped a GPS pin for her location. Bruno rushed out of the Prince George’s County home the sisters share, but by the time she got to the gas station, Platel was gone.

“This is kidnapping,” she thought, and called 911. Local police didn’t have her sister in custody. If ICE had taken her, the officer said, she might be at a federal holding facility in Baltimore.

Platel is one of more than half a million people from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela who came to the U.S. legally under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program. The Trump administration canceled the program in March 2025 and told recipients to “self-deport immediately.” Now parolees are getting swept up in what legal advocates call aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that have escalated in recent weeks, including nabbing people off the streets as they go about their lives.

Platel has applied for asylum, but after her arrest Bruno noticed her sister’s 2028 court date has vanished from the portal. She fears it’s a sign federal authorities are attempting to fast-track Platel’s deportation without putting her before a judge.

Her fear is not unfounded.

“It’s just a drastic shift in policy that applies draconian procedures to people who are paroled into the U.S.,” Shana Khader, legal director at the advocacy and social services nonprofit We Are CASA, said of the administration’s efforts to deport immigrants without proceedings.

Khader’s organization is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the “expedited removal” of people who came to the U.S. under humanitarian parole programs.

Bruno finds herself juggling fundraising for Platel’s legal bills, navigating the complex immigration system and caring for her 10-month-old son. Platel used to help with that.

“Since she was detained, there has been a huge emptiness in our family,” Bruno said. “She is more than someone being held by ICE. She is a mother, sister, an aunt and someone who is deeply loved.”

***

Platel grew up in a rural part of Haiti, where Bruno says jobs are scarce. She moved to Port-au-Prince to pursue her education and look for work and became involved in protests, speaking out against the rampant gang violence in and near the capital city.

Her voice turned her into a target for violence. Thousands of miles away in Maryland, where she had moved when she was 6, Bruno listened as her sister described being physically beaten.

When Bruno learned about the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program, she jumped at the chance to sponsor her sister. Platel’s application was accepted in July 2024, according to court records, and she arrived in the U.S. that month.

The parole offered only temporary relief, so Platel filed for asylum. Bruno felt confident an immigration judge would see the clear dangers she faced if forced to return to Haiti. Platel had left her young son behind when she fled, Bruno said. If it were safe to go back, she would have returned to her child long ago.

In Maryland, Platel built a quiet life focused on work and family.

“She’s always laughing, no matter what,” Bruno said, adding that Platel has helped to care for her infant nephew — even after overnight shifts.

Now, with Platel inside the Caroline Detention Facility in Virginia, the distance between her and her family feels wider than ever. Bruno talks with Platel on the phone, but the sisters are aware their conversations are monitored so they keep it light.

The food is awful, Platel has said. She was sad she wasn’t able to wish her son a happy birthday. The school-aged boy, who lives with relatives in Haiti, asks for his mother when he calls Bruno. The family hasn’t told him his mom is in ICE detention.

***

Those who apply for the humanitarian parole program for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were required to apply from abroad, secure a U.S. financial sponsor, pass criminal background checks and enter the country legally. Platel did all of that.

In March 2025, the administration terminated that program, which covered more than 200,000 Haitians.

Platel applied for asylum in March, court records show. But, after an interview in June, an asylum officer denied her application and her case was sent to the immigration court in Hyattsville.

Platel’s attorney noted in subsequent court filings that such a referral is not a deportation order or warrant for arrest. It simply transfers the asylum claim to a judge for a full hearing.

Yet, as Bruno stood in the gas station parking lot in August, the rules seemed to matter little.

Platel’s arrest in Odenton was not an isolated incident. Enforcement operations in which immigration agents round up residents during routine morning commutes, outside workplaces and on public roadways have drawn legal pushback in Maryland and elsewhere.

Platel’s arrest came shortly after the Department of Homeland Security’s two-week surge in immigration enforcement targeting Maryland and Virginia cities surrounding D.C. More than 1,300 people were detained, according to the agency.

Last week, We Are CASA and other civil rights organizations filed another lawsuit challenging ICE agents’ warrantless arrests that the suit says are based on racial profiling. The organizations notched a victory in a similar case last year in D.C. when a judge issued temporary restrictions on warrantless arrests.

Khader noted that, although the initial two-week surge in Maryland receded, ICE agents remain active throughout the state and her organization continues to receive regular reports of arrests and detentions.

Platel’s fate rests in federal court, where her attorney is challenging her detention.

“ICE has made it clear that they are under a mandate to fill their quotas on detaining and deporting people and will go after everybody and anybody that they can to fuel this mass deportation machine,” Khader said.

On Aug. 24, her attorney, Jorge Artieda, filed a habeas petition asking for her release.

“Ms. Platel came here with the government’s written permission, applied for asylum, and appeared when told,” Artieda wrote in the petition. “Respondents left her in the community for fourteen months after terminating her parole, then jailed her without any hearing at which a single fact about her could matter.”

Platel’s continued detention without a hearing violates her Fifth Amendment right to due process, Artieda argued. He also noted other federal judges have released noncitizen detainees under nearly identical circumstances. The petition asks the court to order her immediate release or grant a hearing so an immigration judge can decide whether to issue a bond.

DHS is opposing Platel’s release, claiming in a response filed in court that, because she was granted temporary humanitarian parole, she was never formally “admitted” to the country and remains legally “deemed an applicant for admission.”

DHS claimed that “unadmitted noncitizens,” such as Platel, have “diminished” liberty interests. In their response to her petition, DHS lawyers suggest Platel’s continued detention is voluntary and that she could be released if she withdraws her application for admission and leaves the country.

Bruno said her relatives and other members of Maryland’s Haitian community are terrified to leave their homes for work or even step outside to check their mailboxes.

“I miss my sister, my baby misses his aunt and it hurts knowing that she is separated from her son in Haiti,” Bruno said. “And now she has been taken away from us too.”

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