Captain Cook Kona Coffee Worker Released After Five Months in ICE Custody

Juan Jose Estrada Lopez, 42, a Kona coffee farm worker who lived in Captain Cook, was released from federal immigration custody on Jan. 27 after more than five months at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, the ACLU of Hawaiʻi said. He had been held without charges or bond, his advocates said.

Hawaii News Now reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Estrada Lopez in August while he was attending a green card interview for lawful permanent residency. He remained in custody until an immigration court ordered his release on Jan. 27, and Hawaii News Now said the court granted him a green card at that hearing.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi had filed a lawsuit challenging his detention, Hawaii News Now reported, and the ACLU dropped that lawsuit after Estrada Lopez’s release. The ACLU publicized his return to the Big Island and worked to reunite him with his family, according to statements from the organization.

Estrada Lopez’s wife, Emily Estrada, who Hawaii News Now reports is a U.S. citizen born and raised in South Kona, described the family’s ordeal in statements quoted by the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. “Unexpected detention at our green card interview has turned our lives completely upside down,” she said. “What we thought was just a routine step in our immigration process has become the most difficult five months of our lives.” She added that “Juan defines himself by his ability to provide, and losing that has been devastating” and that “He’s suffering mentally, emotionally and physically, like any human being would.”

Leilani Stacy, an ACLU-HI immigration rights attorney, told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald that Estrada Lopez was “ripped away” from his wife while she was being interviewed and that on seeing him after release “it was really great just to see him in person and not at the Federal Detention Center, wearing his normal clothes again, and I think he was just really eager to be reunited with his wife.” Stacy described Estrada Lopez as “a really humble, quiet and lovely guy” and said, “If you’ve ever been to FDC, you know he hadn’t seen grass, hadn’t been outside for months.”

Hawaii News Now reported that Estrada Lopez came to the continental United States from Nicaragua in 2022 without documentation and later moved to Hawaii, and that he met and married Emily in 2024. After the Jan. 27 hearing, the ACLU said staff helped get him on a plane back to the Big Island; Stacy said, “I think there was a lot of joy for him and his wife to get him on a plane back home to the Big Island.”

Local advocates and immigration attorneys say the case raises questions about detentions during adjustment-of-status processes and about detention conditions at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu. The ACLU of Hawaiʻi and Estrada Lopez’s family have confirmed his return to Captain Cook and that he is back with his wife.