Yessenia Ruano Joins Suit Arguing ICE Illegally Deports Crime Victims
Ex-Milwaukee educator's deportation drew protests and statewide attention.
Yessenia Ruano puts a hand to her heart before a check-in at the Milwaukee branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 14, 2025. Photo courtesy of Voces de la Frontera
A former Milwaukee teacher’s aide is among the people suing over a change in federal immigration policy.
The lawsuit filed this month accuses Immigration and Customs Enforcement of breaking federal laws and policies that are intended to protect crime victims.
For years, ICE has generally refrained from deporting people with certain types of pending applications for legal status. That includes people applying for visas that are available to crime victims who cooperate with law enforcement.
But, according to the lawsuit, that changed under a 2025 policy.
Now, ICE is routinely arresting, jailing and deporting people under a “blind removal policy” — without first considering the validity of their requests for protected status as a crime victim, the lawsuit says.
“It is a policy of arrest first, ask questions later,” said Rebecca Brown, an attorney who helped file the lawsuit through the nonprofit Public Counsel. “In some cases, the government is sending these survivors straight back into the hands of their abusers.”
ICE is also deporting and detaining crime victims who have been granted formal legal permission to remain temporarily in the U.S through what’s known as “deferred action,” according to the lawsuit. In doing so, ICE has been “treating its enforcement actions as a de facto revocation of deferred action status without prior notice or opportunity to be heard,” the lawsuit says.
Those policy shifts are making everyone less safe, said Erika Cervantes, an attorney with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
The center is one of the groups that filed that lawsuit in a California U.S. district court.
“Folks don’t want to speak to police anymore, and there’s no trust in the criminal justice system,” Cervantes told WPR. “The consequence of that is that there’s going to be more unreported crime.”
According to the lawsuit, the changes are affecting people who self-petition for visas under a process established from the federal Violence Against Women Act. That avenue allows domestic abuse survivors to apply for visas on their own in lieu of having to rely on an abusive family member who is a U.S. citizen.
It’s also affecting people applying for T-visas, which are available to victims of human trafficking, and for U-visas, which are intended for victims of serious crimes, including domestic violence and sexual assault.
Milwaukee educator Yessenia Ruano among the people suing
The groups filing the lawsuit are asking for class action status, arguing that the new policy has harmed “tens of thousands” of people.
One of the plaintiffs is 38-year-old Yessenia Ruano. She crossed the southern border in 2011 to flee violence in her native El Salvador, the lawsuit says. During that journey, the lawsuit says she became a victim of trafficking.
After being detained by Border Patrol, Ruano applied for legal protection and passed a “credible fear” interview, indicating that she had a legitimate fear of violence or persecution if she were forced to return to her home country, according to the lawsuit.
“She was released and placed into immigration court proceedings on a non-detained immigration court docket, which moves extremely slowly,” the lawsuit says. “Over the next fourteen years, Ms. Ruano attended all immigration court hearings and ICE check-ins.”
While she was in the U.S., Ruano married and had a pair of twin daughters. Ruano also worked at Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes, a bilingual school in Milwaukee.
In 2023, an immigration court dismissed Ruano’s application for what’s known as “withholding of removal.” That prompted Ruano to hire new legal counsel and to apply for a T-visa as a trafficking victim.
Earlier this year, Ruano got a notice of deportation informing her she had to leave the country.
Her attorney requested an emergency stay, arguing that Ruano should be allowed to remain in the U.S. while her T-visa application was being considered. ICE denied that request.
In June, Ruano boarded a plane to El Salvador, with her 10-year-old daughters by her side.
“Ultimately, Yessenia decided to self-deport with her daughters rather than put them through the trauma of seeing her arrested and imprisoned,” the lawsuit says. “For weeks, they cried constantly. They remain in El Salvador at significant risk of harm.”
Along with breaking federal laws and directives, the lawsuit accuses immigration enforcement of violating constitutional rights to due process and to protection against unreasonable seizure.
In an email to WPR, a federal official disputed those allegations. The lawsuit names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and ICE as defendants.
“This is yet another clickbait headline,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Every illegal alien ICE removes has had due process and has a final order of removal—meaning they have no legal right to be in the country.”
Ex-Milwaukee educator joins lawsuit arguing feds are illegally deporting crime victims was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
