For Immediate Release // Please Excuse Cross Posting
Friday, April 17th, 2026
Contact: Palmira Figueroa, 425-301-2764; pfigueroa@ndlon.org
WHEN: Friday, April 17th, 2026 at 12 P.M.
WHERE: B-18, Corner of Alameda and E Aliso St, Los Angeles
WHO: Community Members, Lawyers, Rights Leaders
WHAT: Rally and Press Conference to denounce unlawful arrest and incarceration of Isaac Antonio Villegas Molina
Los Angeles, CA— Isaac Villegas is an immigrant worker who has become a civil-rights leader, as one of several brave people who came forward to challenge the Trump Administration’s blatantly unconstitutional racial profiling raids across the Los Angeles area.
After Isaac’s unlawful arrest and incarceration last June, Isaac and other day laborers brought a class action lawsuit in federal court– Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin– challenging the L.A. raids. He has since spoken out about his unconstitutional treatment by ICE, hoping to prevent others from being harmed as he was.
But on Thursday ICE arrested and jailed him again, without notice, in apparent violation of an immigration judge’s order last summer releasing him on bond. He is currently being held in the notorious B-18, a makeshift federal jail in the basement of the Federal Building where ICE prisoners have been locked away in dangerous, overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions.
Mr. Villegas’ immigration lawyer, Stacy Tolchin, on Thursday April 16 filed a habeas petition in Federal Court challenging his unlawful incarceration and demanding his immediate release.
On Friday community members will gather at B18 to call for Mr. Villegas’ release and to condemn ICE’s ongoing unlawful practices in Los Angeles.
Stacy Tolchin, Mr. Villegas’ immigration attorney said: “Mr. Villegas was released from detention because a judge determined he was not a danger or flight risk. Since then he has diligently pursued his immigration case and complied with all of ICE’s requirements. ICE’s redetention of Mr. Villegas without notice, explanation, or indication that he did anything wrong violates his constitutional right to due process.”
Lauren Michel Wilfong, a lawyer with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said:
“We demand Isaac Villegas’s immediate release. When Isaac and other unjustly targeted immigrant workers decided to bring the Vasquez Perdomo lawsuit, they bravely stood up not just for themselves but for the Constitutional rights of all people. Now it’s our turn to stand with Isaac and everyone harmed by DHS’s ongoing illegal actions in LA.”
Mohammad Tajsar, a lawyer with the ACLU of Southern California said:
“It is a shocking act of retaliation for the federal government to arrest someone who has courageously dared to call out the government’s unlawful immigration raids. Because the First Amendment protects everyone’s right to sue the government, we expect Isaac to be released immediately.”
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