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By CLARK KAUFFMAN
A Venezuelan citizen held by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement in the Muscatine County Jail for almost six months is taking the federal government to court over the matter.
Albin Jose Nunez Romero has filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa against Muscatine County Sheriff Quinn Riess; Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin; David Easterwood, an ICE field office director, and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
In his lawsuit, Romero alleges he entered the United States on a flight to Miami in October 2019. "I did not sneak into this country," Romero says in court filings. "I was inspected by an immigration officer and I was admitted on a B-2 visitor visa."
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According to the lawsuit, Romero was picked up by ICE in May 2026 and sent to the Muscatine County Jail, where he remains today. "This is the first time in my life that I have been in a jail," he alleges.
The lawsuit asserts that an immigration judge ordered his removal from the United States in August 2026, and that Romero has appealed that ruling.
"I am not asking this court to decide my immigration case," Romero says in his petition to U.S. District Court. "I am asking this court look at the fact that I am being held in a jail, month after month, while that case is being decided."
The U.S. Department of Justice and Muscatine County have yet to file a response to the petition.