Jacob “Ya’akub” Ira Vijandre, an aviation safety specialist, first responder and photojournalist from Arlington, Texas, says he has been held in US immigration detention for more than a year in retaliation for his speech on Pales-tine. Writing in an opinion piece for USA Today, Vijandre said he was surrounded by about a dozen armed agents as he pulled out of his home one morning in October 2025, with one agent pointing a gun at his face. He was later transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility in Folkston, Georgia, far from his family.

Vijandre said the government cited his advocacy, social media posts and commentary as evidence that he had “engaged in terrorist activity.” He said he had been protesting the treatment of political prisoners and speaking out against what he described as genocide in Ga-za. According to his lawyers’ federal court filings, a joint terrorism task force identified him as a subject of interest in November 2023 and tried to recruit him as a confidential informant, using his immigration status and connections within the Muslim community and Pales-tine organizing as leverage. He said that after he refused, authorities began reviewing his immigration record and, almost two years later, terminated his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status and arrested him.

Vijandre immigrated to the United States from the Philippines with his family in 2001, at age 14, and held DACA status from 2012 until it was revoked last year. He has lived in the country for more than 25 years. As a member of an airline Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) team, he supported grieving families after the January 2025 collision between a regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, DC, which killed 67 people. He said his great-grandfather and great-uncle were posthumously awarded Congressional Gold Medals in 2020 for their US military service in World War II. His mother, a district nurse, is now seriously ill with cancer.

Twenty-three members of Congress have called for his release and raised concerns about the government’s reliance on his political and religious expression. A magistrate judge in southern Georgia has ruled that his habeas corpus petition can proceed, rejecting the administration’s attempt to dismiss the case. Vijandre also pointed to an August ruling by a federal judge that the government cannot use immigration law to punish or deport noncitizens for speech protected under the First and Fifth Amendments.

Vijandre said his case is part of a wider pattern of immigration enforcement against advocates for Pales-tinian rights, including Mahmoud Khalil, Leqaa Kordia and Salah Sarsour. He argued that the administration is testing how far it can stretch immigration law, including terrorism provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, to punish speech critical of Israel. The Department of Homeland Security has said his social media posts indicated he endorsed terrorism, a claim he denies.