Press ReleaseCeremonial2026-07-27

Congresswoman, attorney argue a Houston ISD student from Russia is here legally. He was detained by ICE anyway

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This press release from Representative Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) was published on 2026-07-27 and titled "Congresswoman, attorney argue a Houston ISD student from Russia is here legally. He was detained by ICE anyway".

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Congresswoman, attorney argue a Houston ISD student from Russia is here legally. He was detained by ICE anyway

Like many rising high school seniors have done this summer, Alim Garipov packed his bags and headed to Hobby Airport on Friday, July 17, preparing to set off on a series of college tours. As an "A" student with ambitious goals, he had his sights set on several top schools, including the Ivy League universities Harvard, Princeton and Yale. But the trip would never take off. Instead, he spent the weekend in a federal detention center. After passing through security at Hobby Airport, two plain-clothed U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested Garipov, according to U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston. An ICE spokesperson said Garipov had initially entered the country legally in May of 2022, but was only permitted to stay for six months and did not depart at that time. After his arrest, the Bellaire High School student from Russia was then sent to the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe for overstaying his visa. As an 18-year-old, he was detained alongside adults. Garipov was released three days later. ICE said the Houston ISD student was enrolled in the "alternatives to detention program," allowing Garipov to leave the detention center and remain in the country pending his immigration hearing. He is required to "report to ICE regularly," an agency spokesperson said. Olsa Alikaj-Cano, an immigration attorney working with the Garipov family, told Houston Public Media ICE agents should never have arrested her client and says they did not carefully review his file to see Garipov had a pending asylum claim. ICE says pending applications do not equate to any type of legal status, and those who make them are still subject to detention or deportation. "We worked nonstop. It took [Congresswoman] Lizzie Fletcher's office working with us, the community, all of it together," Alikaj-Cano said of the efforts behind Garipov's release. She confirmed the family arrived here on a tourist visa from Russia, when Garipov was 14 years old during the Biden administration, and said they began working with her shortly after their arrival to file an asylum claim. "We took plenty of time to do everything legally, properly and correctly," Alikaj-Cano said. Alim Garipov is a rising senior at Bellaire High School. Garipov was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Friday, July 17, before being released three days later. Rehan Alimohammad, an immigration attorney, said these kinds of detentions have spiked since President Donald Trump took office for the second time in 2025. His administration has made a push to increase deportations and detentions. A report by the American Immigration Council which detailed the administration's rapid and ongoing expansion of immigration detentions, showed its changes in enforcement have disproportionately affected immigrants with no criminal backgrounds, such as Garipov. Arrests of immigrants with no criminal backgrounds spiked from roughly 1,000 to more than 20,000 from 2024 to 2025. The agency began implementing "at-large" arrests, worksite raids at farms, construction sites, factories and other areas, as well as new "rearrest" practices at ICE check-ins and immigration courthouses. Most arrests at immigration courts were migrants seeking asylum, the council found. "It’s those policies that have changed – where it doesn’t matter whether you have cases pending with [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services]. It doesn’t matter whether you’re eventually going to win. What matters is the numbers," Alimohammad said. Moving targets According to an NPR report in April, detentions are up more than 70% when compared to the first year of the Biden administration. Immigration officers under Trump have arrested and detained convicted criminals in the country without legal status, but the officers have also detained many people without a criminal record as well as some migrants who are in the country with temporary protections from deportation. A pending asylum claim does not protect immigrants from being detained or deported. However, Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, explained in the Trump administration's effort to deliver on higher detentions to show a crackdown on immigration to the U.S., ICE is casting a significantly wider net for who is investigated and arrested. "ICE has the authority to investigate and detain any immigrant person who even with a legal status can be investigated," Ruiz Soto said. "That discretion and the breadth of that discretion have been applied more widely under the Trump administration. It doesn’t mean that a person who is seeking asylum should not or would not be detained in the past, but that now ICE is trying to increase removals and going after many other cases they would not otherwise normally go for." Garipov's release from detention was celebrated by his community. However, his enrollment in the alternatives to detention program does not come without some future risk of detention or even depor

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Congresswoman, attorney argue a Houston ISD student from Russia is here legally. He was detained by ICE anyway Like many rising high school seniors have done this summer, Alim Garipov packed his bags and headed to Hobby Airport on Friday, July 17, preparing to set off on a series of college tours. As an "A" student with ambitious goals, he had his sights set on several top schools, including the Ivy League universities Harvard, Princeton and Yale. But the trip would never take off. Instead, he spent the weekend in a federal detention center. After passing through security at Hobby Airport, two plain-clothed U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested Garipov, according to U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston. An ICE spokesperson said Garipov had initially entered the country legally in May of 2022, but was only permitted to stay for six months and did not depart at that time. After his arrest, the Bellaire High School student from Russia was then sent to the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe for overstaying his visa. As an 18-year-old, he was detained alongside adults. Garipov was released three days later. ICE said the Houston ISD student was enrolled in the "alternatives to detention program," allowing Garipov to leave the detention center and remain in the country pending his immigration hearing. He is required to "report to ICE regularly," an agency spokesperson said. Olsa Alikaj-Cano, an immigration attorney working with the Garipov family, told Houston Public Media ICE agents should never have arrested her client and says they did not carefully review his file to see Garipov had a pending asylum claim. ICE says pending applications do not equate to any type of legal status, and those who make them are still subject to detention or deportation. "We worked nonstop. It took [Congresswoman] Lizzie Fletcher's office working with us, the community, all of it together," Alikaj-Cano said of the efforts behind Garipov's release. She confirmed the family arrived here on a tourist visa from Russia, when Garipov was 14 years old during the Biden administration, and said they began working with her shortly after their arrival to file an asylum claim. "We took plenty of time to do everything legally, properly and correctly," Alikaj-Cano said. Alim Garipov is a rising senior at Bellaire High School. Garipov was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Friday, July 17, before being released three days later. Rehan Alimohammad, an immigration attorney, said these kinds of detentions have spiked since President Donald Trump took office for the second time in 2025. His administration has made a push to increase deportations and detentions. A report by the American Immigration Council which detailed the administration's rapid and ongoing expansion of immigration detentions, showed its changes in enforcement have disproportionately affected immigrants with no criminal backgrounds, such as Garipov. Arrests of immigrants with no criminal backgrounds spiked from roughly 1,000 to more than 20,000 from 2024 to 2025. The agency began implementing "at-large" arrests, worksite raids at farms, construction sites, factories and other areas, as well as new "rearrest" practices at ICE check-ins and immigration courthouses. Most arrests at immigration courts were migrants seeking asylum, the council found. "It’s those policies that have changed – where it doesn’t matter whether you have cases pending with [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services]. It doesn’t matter whether you’re eventually going to win. What matters is the numbers," Alimohammad said. Moving targets According to an NPR report in April, detentions are up more than 70% when compared to the first year of the Biden administration. Immigration officers under Trump have arrested and detained convicted criminals in the country without legal status, but the officers have also detained many people without a criminal record as well as some migrants who are in the country with temporary protections from deportation. A pending asylum claim does not protect immigrants from being detained or deported. However, Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, explained in the Trump administration's effort to deliver on higher detentions to show a crackdown on immigration to the U.S., ICE is casting a significantly wider net for who is investigated and arrested. "ICE has the authority to investigate and detain any immigrant person who even with a legal status can be investigated," Ruiz Soto said. "That discretion and the breadth of that discretion have been applied more widely under the Trump administration. It doesn’t mean that a person who is seeking asylum should not or would not be detained in the past, but that now ICE is trying to increase removals and going after many other cases they would not otherwise normally go for." Garipov's release from detention was celebrated by his community. However, his enrollment in the alternatives to detention program does not come without some future risk of detention or even depor