LINCOLN, Neb. — After spending months in federal immigration custody with no clear end in sight, Semere Gherezgiher has filed a lawsuit seeking release from what he alleges is unlawful and indefinite detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Semere Gherezgiher, who is unable to return to his home country, has spent several months in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is now suing. He is currently being held in the immigration detention facility in McCook, Nebraska, after being transferred there from Minnesota last year.
According to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Gherezgiher on Feb. 3, 2026. The lawsuit argues that, given his personal circumstances and the government’s handling of his case, he has been subjected to indefinite detention.
This indefinite detention violates his right to due process and U.S. Supreme Court precedent that limits the time someone may be detained after an order of removal.
Gherezgiher fled Eritrea, a country with well-documented human rights abuses, in 2016. The country had mandatory military service, which was described by Amnesty International as “indefinite and unpaid forced labor that is akin to slavery,” and many of his family members had been forced to serve.
He arrived in Southern California after six years of constant travel between many countries. When he arrived in the United States, an immigration court judge ordered his removal and also stated that he would not be able to return to Eritrea under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
During the order, the court did not require his detention. Gherezgiher moved to Minnesota, and ICE took him into custody in May 2025.
Immigration authorities tried to deport him to Germany but were unsuccessful because they could not obtain proper documentation.
Gherezgiher is now unsure of his future living plans, as he is currently in detention and there is no clear indication of when it will end. He does not know when he will be released, and even if he is released, he does not know where to go.
This lawsuit cites the 2001 Supreme Court case Zadvydas v. Davis. The case held that immigration officials are not permitted to hold immigrants for more than six months after they are ordered removed.
An exception to this is if there is “there is a significant likelihood of removing them in the reasonably foreseeable future.”
The lawsuit also seeks Gherezgiher’s release so he can determine his next steps “as a man without a country while in the community instead of in custody.”
When Gherezgiher was asked what he would like to share with the public, he simply said, “I want to be free.”
The ACLU of Nebraska staff attorney Grant Friedman said the federal government does not have the power to detain immigrants indefinitely, yet this is still happening in this case.
He said the government has not been able to remove Gherezgiher and that there is no evidence that the “government will be positioned to remove him in the near future.”
He concluded by saying that this detention is “unlawful and benefits no one,” acknowledging a future encounter with ICE in court.
Prior to this case, the ACLU of Nebraska also filed a lawsuit on behalf of another man in the same detention facility, Carlos Chang.
Chang’s lawsuit “focuses on his denied bond hearing under ICE’s mandatory detention policy — a hearing that has not yet been scheduled.”
Last year, following an ICE workplace raid in Omaha, the ACLU of Nebraska prompted the release of three women who were separated from their families.
Advocacy efforts also led to the release of a fourth client, a man with two young children at home.
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