By Center For Constitutional Rights
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
April 15, 2026, Houston – Mohammed Abushanab, a 27-year-old Palestinian asylum-seeker who fled persecution by the Israeli military in the West Bank, was released after 20 months in immigration detention late yesterday afternoon. On Monday, a federal court ordered ICE to release Mr. Abushunab within 48 hours. ICE had continued to hold him even after an immigration judge granted him humanitarian relief from deportation on grounds that he would likely be tortured or otherwise face danger were he sent back to Palestine.
In November, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Texas A&M Legal Clinics filed a habeas petition on Mr. Abushanab’s behalf, asserting that his detention violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. ICE sought summary judgment in the government’s favor, arguing that the government was keeping him detained for deportation to a third country at some future point. In December, his lawyers asked the court to reject that argument as unlawful and grant the habeas petition, which the court just did.
“I want to celebrate this moment,” Mr. Abushanab said. “This is an amazing accomplishment. The days that I have lived here have been so lonely and hard for me mentally, with ICE making all efforts not to release me. This turns things around. This court order has helped me achieve justice.”
In the West Bank, Abushanab lived on his family’s land, just one hundred meters from the Israeli border. The Israeli military routinely harassed him, abducted him, and detained him. During one period of detention, he was interrogated for hours at a time and physically abused. After Israeli soldiers came onto his land and fired bullets near him, he feared for his life and fled.
“We are thrilled that Mr. Abushanab was released from ICE custody,” Center for Constitutional Rights Staff Attorney Kayla Vinson said. “We are also horrified by ICE’s insistence on keeping him in a cage, including for more than a year after he was granted humanitarian relief. Without this court order, ICE would have continued to do so. Mr. Abushanab’s suffering and separation from his loved ones was unnecessary and inhumane. We are glad that the federal district court brought an end to that injustice.”
Last year, in February 2025, an immigration judge granted him both withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Despite the humanitarian relief, ICE continued to detain Mr. Abushanab, and his mental health deteriorated. He was taunted by guards, who denied him the ability both to perform prayers essential to his Muslim faith and to meet regularly with a cleric. To protest his treatment, he engaged in a hunger strike, which he ended when a guard threatened to send him to solitary confinement if he did not eat.
For more information, see the case page.
