U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino has blocked Donald Trump’s administration from expelling Felix Eni, a 68-year-old Nigerian citizen, who used a student visa to enter America in 1980.

Ms Sammartino of the U.S. District for the Southern District of California ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to follow its own rules to eject a non-citizen, as was the case of Mr Eni’s planned deportation to a third-party nation.

Mr Eni entered the U.S. in March 1980 but was later convicted of a misdemeanor linked to a student loan that was “improperly” obtained under the visa. After his release, ICE agents arrested and deported him to Nigeria. But Mr Eni returned to the U.S. in 2001 and began working as a nurse.

In 2008, immigration officials again detained Mr Eni and scheduled him for deportation, but a court granted him a reprieve, withholding his removal to Nigeria. He was subsequently released from ICE custody based on an order of supervision, that mandated him to regularly check-in with the U.S. government to track his movement.

From 2008 till 2025, Mr Eni never missed any check-in appointment for 17 years despite retiring from his nursing job in 2024. He obtained a driving licence and began working as a driver on Lyft and Uber.

On October 31, he accepted a Lyft request to drive a passenger to Camp Pendleton. Upon arriving at the military base, guards who checked his identification, flagged him an alien with “limited” status , and swiftly took him to another military camp. Mr Eni was not briefed on why he was being held.

ICE agents who were been contacted detained him at their facility. Still, Mr Eni was left in the dark as to why he was being detained.

The following day, he was handed a vaguely-worded notice revoking his supervised release granted 17 years earlier, citing a change in circumstances that was not explained. He was also informed that arrangements were underway to repatriate him to a third-party nation.

Mr Eni petitioned the court to challenge his planned deportation, arguing that ICE gave no adequate explanation for revoking his order of supervised release obtained in 2008.

Ms Sammartino agreed with the Nigerian, ruling that ICE can only re-detain a non-citizen on account of changed circumstances, violations of his supervised release or a high possibility that the alien stood to be deported in the “reasonable foreseeable future.”

The judge further stated that the law for ICE’s re-detention of aliens mandated that affected persons be fully briefed on the reason for revocation of supervised release and given an informal interview to provide them an opportunity to defend themselves.

She ruled that the notice sent to Mr Eni could not suffice because it failed to “demonstrate what circumstances had changed in petitioner’s case to justify re-detention.”

She described “changed circumstances” as too “plain ” adding that Mr Eni could not defend himself if he didn’t know the accusations the government had against him.

“These plain statements are insufficient to provide notice and do not demonstrate what circumstances had changed in petitioner’s case to justify re-detention,” ruled the U.S. district judge.

“Petitioner cannot be expected to ‘respond to the reasons for revocation stated in the notification’ when the notice does not actually state any reasons for revocation,” the judge said in her ruling citing a precedent.

Ms Sammartino said ICE’s argument of a change in the international relations between the U.S. and Nigeria did not hold water in a case as peculiar as Mr Eni’s. She opined that government institutions should be trustworthy enough to follow their own rules.

Ms Sammartino ordered “respondents to immediately release petitioner from custody subject to the conditions of his preexisting order of supervision. The court orders that respondents cannot re-detain petitioner without following the procedures.”

Based on the ruling, the court denied Mr Eni’s petition for a temporary restraining order declaring it as “moot.”