Judge orders release of Iranian bodybuilder after nearly 5-month detention

Source: Associated Press

Judge orders release of Iranian bodybuilder after nearly 5-month detention

MORGAN LEE
Mon, December 15, 2025 at 8:09 PM EST
2 min read

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A federal judge is ordering the release of an Iranian migrant and bodybuilder held by U.S. immigration authorities for over five months. Attorneys for Hamid Ziaei said Monday he was detained without apparent progress on deportation to a country other than Iran, where he fears persecution.

Ziaei's attorneys told a judge in Albuquerque that he was being held in violation of due process protections at an immigrant detention facility in New Mexico nearly six months after being taken into custody at a check-in appointment with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in California.

“The (U.S.) government provided no evidence that there was any likelihood of Mr. Ziaei’s removal in the reasonable, foreseeable future,” said Rachel Landry, a staff attorney at Innovation Law Lab.

Court filings on Ziaei's behalf say he fled Iran after speaking out against the government there, arriving in the U.S. in San Diego in January 2024. Though an asylum request was rejected, Ziaei was released in mid-2024 with authorization to work based on concerns he would be persecuted if returned to Iran. That type of provisional release is far less common than asylum and allows authorities to pursue removal to another, safer country.

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