A federal judge in California has ruled a Milwaukee teacher’s aide can return to the U.S. to await an initial decision in her application for a trafficking victims’ visa, and immigration authorities cannot deport her during that time.
That judge, Andre Birotte, said it was “likely unlawful” that the Trump administration forced Yessenia Ruano to carry out her own deportation to El Salvador without taking an initial look at her T visa application and determining whether it met the basic requirements of the visa.
In a voice message, Ruano said she is now hoping for an order that would allow her husband to return to the U.S. with her because she does not want to leave him behind in El Salvador. The couple has twin 10-year-old daughters, Paola and Elizabeth, who were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens. In Milwaukee, Ruano was an aide at a bilingual public school and her husband was a line lead at a pizza factory.
The ruling was part of a federal lawsuit brought by eight individuals and two immigrant rights groups, arguing a policy change by President Donald Trump’s administration should be reversed. The 2025 policy change stripped deportation protections for people with pending applications for visas intended for crime, abuse and trafficking victims.
The plaintiffs argued the Trump administration policy was “contrary to protections afforded them by Congress andcontrary to congressional intent, and represents a sea change in policy,” violating laws around how the government can make rules, according to court documents.
Several of the other plaintiffs are women who survived domestic violence or are crime victims, then applied for T or U visas, and were granted a “deferred action” status, which was supposed to prevent them from being deported. Despite that, the lawsuit said, the women were detained by immigration agents.
Ruano, who arrived in the U.S. in 2011, fleeing gang violence and threats, had been waiting on a decision on a separate immigration status, called “withholding of removal,” for years before dropping her case on questionable advice from an attorney. She then applied for a trafficking victims’ visa, or a T visa, based on her experience with human smugglers near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The judge’s ruling pointed out that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which carries out deportations, was required by law first to have reached out to another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – USCIS – to ask them to make a “prima facie determination” on Ruano’s T visa case. That’s a first look to determine if, on its face, the case meets the basic criteria for the visa.
The judge described the Trump administration policy change as a “blind removal policy” in that it “blindly” detained and deported people without first looking into their pending visa applications.
ICE gave Ruano no choice but to carry out her own deportation, and had threatened to detain her if she did not buy a plane ticket back to El Salvador. She had no criminal record. She left the U.S. in June 2025 with her daughters.
Over the last year, her daughters have enrolled in school in El Salvador, and she and her husband have been building a house and taking job-training courses.
The judge’s order, issued May 20, prevents ICE from detaining Ruano before that prima facie determination is made.
It remains unclear how USCIS will rule on Ruano’s T visa application itself, which is ongoing. Because of long processing times, it could be a handful of years before a decision in her case is made. If she were granted the T visa, she could eventually receive permanent residency, and later citizenship.
Sophie Carson is a general assignment reporter who reports on religion and faith, immigrants and refugees and more. Contact her at scarson@gannett.com or 920-323-5758.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Judge says former MPS aide can return to the US, ICE actions ‘likely unlawful’
Reporting by Sophie Carson and La Risa R. Lynch, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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