Federal judge blocks deportation of West Hollywood man detained by ICE during immigration check-in

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- A federal judge is temporarily blocking the deportation of a longtime West Hollywood resident detained by ICE agents this week.

Alex Pereira-Alves is from Brazil, but the government was preparing to deport him to Equatorial Guinea in Africa, a country he's never even visited.

The Trump administration has made deals to send some deportees to countries they're not from, which is how Pereira-Alves could be sent to Equatorial Guinea.

NOTE: DHS requested that Pereira-Alves be deported to Equatorial Guinea in Africa. His loved ones previously thought he was going to Guyana. This article has been updated to reflect that change.

Pereira-Alves is being held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. A federal judge put his deportation order on hold, buying his attorney more time to fight it.

"On Monday he got a call from an ICE officer saying, 'You need to report Tuesday, downtown.' Out of the blue, unexpected, sudden," said Pereira-Alves' friend Jeff Markwardt.

It was at the routine check-in that Pereira-Alves was suddenly taken into immigration custody. The Brazilian immigrant has called Southern California home for years, working as a security guard and personal trainer.

But a writ of habeas corpus could be his ticket to safety. It's asking a federal judge to decide if the government is illegally detaining him. The court has until next week to respond on the grounds that Pereira-Alves' rights were violated.

"Because they did not allow him to do a credible fear interview with respect to Guyana, the country that they said they were going to send him to and he was under supervision, it was depriving him of his right to due process, so that is the basis of our habeas corpus, meaning you don't have a right to hold him without due process," said Pereira-Alves' attorney, Jane Oak. "He cannot be removed from the detention center to any country at any time until we are fully finished with these submissions."

Oak says an immigration judge issued a final order of removal in 2018, but also granted him protection from being sent back to Brazil -- where he also feared violence against his life.

The Department of Homeland Security confirms that final removal order and said in a statement, in part: "On July 5, 2010, Pereira-Alves legally entered the country with authorization to stay for six months. He illegally overstayed his welcome, in violation of our nation's laws."

"Literally he told me, 'They're going to kill me' because he had learned maybe about what Guyana is like and what the plan was for him," Markwardt said. "I'd never heard him in that state, and then I told him, 'Alex, we're working on habeas corpus,' and then he started crying out of shock."

The family later learned DHS actually requested that Pereira-Alves be deported to Equatorial Guinea in Africa, not Guyana.

But this doesn't mean Pereira-Alves won his case. The removal order still stands. The fight now is over whether his rights were violated when he was detained, and if he is deported, where he could be sent.

"It's still, for Alex, a better situation to not be sent straight from Adelanto to a country that he'd feel afraid to go to without his dog, without his belongings. He would prefer to be released from detention and then, on his own terms, leave with everything he needs with him," Oak said.

DHS told Eyewitness News that Pereira-Alves will remain in ICE custody at the Adelanto immigration processing center pending removal.

A major concern for his friends and family right now is his lack of access to his daily medications, and of course, the conditions reported at the Adelanto facility. Just last month, a federal judge ordered improvements to clean drinking water and medical care there, following a lawsuit after the deaths of two Adelanto detainees last fall.