"A Venezuelan man from The Bronx told THE CITY that he has begun a hunger strike to protest that immigration authorities have jailed him for more than seven months, despite multiple court rulings ordering his release.

Several judges have pointedly rejected government claims that the man, whom THE CITY will identify as Jose H., due to concerns about retaliation, was a member of the Tren de Aragua gang — the basis for the Trump administration’s claim that he would pose a danger to the community.

“They are denying me my rights. I already posted two bails,” he said Wednesday in a telephone interview from the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y. “They are treating me like the worst criminal in the United States, and I have never committed a crime.”"

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"Although he has no criminal record, ICE deemed him a danger to the community, asserting without evidence that he was a member of the Tren de Aragua gang.

On March 18, New York immigration judge Dara Reid forcefully rejected this claim, calling it “entirely premised upon an unsubstantiated assertion,” and ordered Jose’s release on a $5,000 bond,

He’s been held since then, mostly under a federal regulation that was once invoked sparingly but is used increasingly in the second Trump administration. It empowers the Department of Homeland Security to block a detainee’s release automatically, simply by filing a form (EOIR-43, in bureaucratic jargon) with the court, while it appeals a bond decision. It doesn’t require DHS to offer any justification."

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"His lawyer from the nonprofit Brooklyn Defenders, Ilana Herr, who was present when THE CITY interviewed her client, differed: He had been paroled into the United States in 2022, had applied for asylum in 2023 on the basis of his political opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and was granted a work permit. He worked for a food delivery service.

At the jail, developments continued to unfold. Correction officers took Jose H. to a medical unit for tests after he refused dinner on Wednesday night. According to his lawyer, he told her Thursday that an officer pushed him to the ground when he refused to go to a medical observation cell and that three officers pinned him down to handcuff him, hurting his knee and jaw in the process. He was sent to a cell with only a mattress on the floor, she said.

In addition, Herr said, he told her that ICE officers threatened to send him to a jail in Louisiana or Florida if he continued the hunger strike. To avoid transfer or the isolation of the medical observation cell, he agreed to a doctor’s offer to eat a piece of bread in return for a promise that he will be returned to his usual cell, Herr said, adding that her client said he had no appetite for it."

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