(KRON) -- A UC Berkeley student and asylum seeker was released from federal custody after she was detained at SFO.
On Monday, a federal judge approved the release of 23-year-old Paula Albornoz Hernandez. The Department of Homeland Security claimed she did not have legal permission to be in the country, despite having a current work permit and pending asylum application, according to her attorneys.
DHS explains why ICE agents arrested UC Berkeley student at San Francisco airport
Paula Albornoz Hernandez (Photos courtesy Centro Legal De La Raza)
"She fled persecution in her home country," said Albornoz Hernandez's Oakland-based immigration attorney Niko De Bremaeker Centro. "Our asylum laws are built to protect those folks and not deport somebody who is in the process of applying for asylum. The government told her that she was taking the right steps."
Hernandez, who is originally from Colombia, was approached by an ICE agent at SFO on Oct. 30. She was waiting with her boyfriend to board a plane to Oregon for a vacation. Instead, she was transported to California City Detention Facility in Kern County, which has come under scrutiny and been investigated for alleged inhumane conditions.
"No human being should be held there," said De Bremaeker Centro. "It's just a stunningly dystopian site to have this awful detention center that took style cues from concentration camps. It's just an atrocity and a flagrant human rights violation and should not exist."
Albornoz Hernandez's release comes after more than a week in the facility. During that time, her family, friends and school community worked to bring attention to her case, with hundreds of students gathering to protest.
Students and community members gather on Berkeley campus to protest the ICE detention of Paula Valentina Albornoz Hernandez, a student at the university, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, in Berkeley, Calif. (Felicia Mello/Berkeleyside via AP)
The university also said it "mobilized quickly" on Albornoz Hernandez's behalf — ensuring the family was connected to legal support and engaging with lawmakers who could lobby for her release, including U.S. Senator Alex Padilla.
The university said it received dozens of letters of support from Padilla and other elected officials, including U.S. Representatives Lateefah Simon and Sam Liccardo and California State Senator Jesse Arreguín — all of whom have been outspoken about the arrest.
"ICE continues its cruel agenda by detaining an asylum seeker and student at SFO. I join in the universal outrage over this inhumane act," wrote Arreguín on social media Wednesday.
In a statement to KRON4, also issued Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon wrote, "Paula deserves safety and care. She deserves to return to her family and her community at UC Berkeley. She deserves to continue her academic studies without fear of a rogue federal agency."
According to university officials, Albornoz Hernandez is believed to be the first enrolled UC Berkeley student detained by ICE since the Trump administration launched its mass deportation push last year. Her legal team argues the detention would not have occurred under previous administrations and has vowed to pursue an investigation into DHS, even after her release.
"We have never seen this level of constitutional violations from the government. It is absolutely unprecedented. She should not have been detained, and I don't believe it would have happened under prior administrations, and it just cannot happen again," said De Bremaeker Centro.
