VIRGINIA — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced Tuesday that Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian-born former professional soccer player, was freed after spending more than two years in unlawful U.S. immigration detention following his acquittal on terrorism-related charges.
The case, Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al., has been cited as a striking example of prolonged and inhumane detention practices within the U.S. justice and immigration systems.
According to the lawsuit, Trabelsi was extradited from Belgium to the United States in 2013 to face terrorism-related charges, where he spent nearly 10 years in solitary confinement while awaiting trial. In July 2023, a federal jury cleared him of all charges. Despite this, U.S. authorities immediately transferred him to immigration detention and continued to hold him as though he were an undocumented entrant seeking admission. His legal team argued this was a misclassification, as Trabelsi had been brought to the United States against his will through extradition.
Following this, Trabelsi spent more than two additional years in solitary confinement, roughly 23 hours a day with virtually no human contact, reading materials, or opportunities for religious practice. The ACLU stated that Trabelsi’s lawyers described his confinement as “even more restrictive” than during his decade-long pretrial detention. According to court filings, his mental and physical health worsened considerably during this time.
Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, called the case a “tragic example of systemic failure.” She said, “Mr. Trabelsi will finally be able to do what he should have been able to do years ago — rebuild his life with his family in Belgium.”
The Belgian government had repeatedly issued diplomatic requests urging the United States to release Trabelsi and return him to Belgium. For years, those requests went unanswered. Instead, U.S. officials attempted to deport him to Tunisia, the country of his birth, despite international law protections against deportation to countries where a person is likely to face torture or persecution, according to the ACLU.
Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, criticized the government’s actions. “The government demanded Mr. Trabelsi’s extradition from Belgium for criminal prosecution, and when it failed to convict him, it forced him to suffer more than two years of extremely harsh detention for essentially no purpose at all,” he said.
The ACLU of Virginia, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School all served as part of Trabelsi’s legal representation. They collectively challenged his continued detention under immigration authority as unconstitutional and contrary to both domestic and international law.
Sophia Gregg, an attorney at the ACLU of Virginia, emphasized the broader implications of the case. “Mr. Trabelsi’s inhumane treatment in immigration detention is just the latest in a long string of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s violations of both the law and its own policies,” she said. “That should never have happened.”
After 24 years of confinement across multiple facilities and legal jurisdictions, Trabelsi was released and flown to Belgium earlier this week. Upon his arrival, he was reunited with his wife and children. “I am so blessed to finally have my freedom after 24 years,” Trabelsi said in a statement released by the ACLU. “My family has been waiting so long, and we can now be together and start a new chapter in our lives.”
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