Elías Pérez-Zuazo, a Panamanian national, was detained by ICE on December 10, 2024, during a scheduled appointment at an ICE office in Chantilly, Virginia, where he had checked in without incident in prior years. Pérez-Zuazo entered the U.S. in November 2021 and married his U.S. citizen spouse, Jonathan Blanco Gallegos, in February 2024; the couple had an approved I-130 family petition pending for his green card. ICE claimed a prior deportation order existed from November 2021, but his attorney contested this, stating case records do not reflect such an order and questioning the legality of the detention. Pérez-Zuazo was held at Farmville Detention Center in Virginia. A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued an order barring ICE from removing him from the judicial district and ordered ICE to respond to a habeas corpus petition while the court reviews whether his detention is lawful.