Loreto Javar went to what his family expected to be the final step toward U.S. citizenship. Instead, the 76-year-old walked out of his naturalization interview in Tukwila, Washington, into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he has been locked in a detention center ever since, battling stage 4 prostate cancer behind bars.
On Monday, an immigration judge pushed his case to Sept. 20, a delay his daughter says will cost him yet another cancer appointment.
Javar, a retired hotel worker who lives in Fife, Washington, with his wife and daughter, has been a lawful permanent resident since 1995 and has held a green card for three decades, according to the Seattle Times, which first reported his case.
He was taken into custody on June 23 during his citizenship interview and has been held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, a facility run by the private GEO Group, for more than two months. Newsweek reported that his daughter, Daisy Javar, 52, told the outlet after Monday’s hearing, “I want him out today.”
ICE says the detention stems from something that happened half a century ago and an ocean away.
In a statement to the Seattle Times, an agency spokesperson said Javar was arrested because he had failed to disclose a criminal conviction in the Philippines when he first applied for a U.S. visa in 1995 to join his father, then already a U.S. citizen. Court documents reviewed by the newspaper allege that Javar was involved in an altercation in the Philippines in the 1970s that left one person dead; he told officials at the time of his June arrest that he had served about three years in jail there before being released on parole. Had he disclosed the conviction in 1995, the ICE spokesperson said, he would have been ineligible to enter the country, and “he is therefore ineligible to remain in the United States now,” according to the Seattle Times.
His family tells a very different story of the years since.
Daisy Javar said her father renewed his green card repeatedly without any problem, most recently in December, applied for citizenship in November 2025, and has no criminal history in the United States. She said he had obtained a police clearance from the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation as part of securing his visa back in 1995. Javar never told his family about the old conviction, his daughter said, but in her account he had built an unremarkable, law-abiding life: “He’s been following all the rules, paying his taxes, everything,” she told the Seattle Times. She has also questioned whether her father was detained on purpose during what was billed as a routine interview.
What has alarmed his supporters most is his health. Javar was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in January and also has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and high blood pressure, his daughter said. He is prescribed oral cancer medications along with other drugs, and an online petition by the Filipino advocacy group Tanggol Migrante Movement says his treatment has been interrupted since he entered ICE custody. He has missed oncology appointments that take place on the fourth of each month, visits meant to draw bloodwork and adjust his medication to keep the cancer in check — and has developed a blood clot in his stomach, the petition says. Daisy Javar told the Seattle Times that meals in detention often arrive so late, lunch sometimes at 6 p.m. and dinner at midnight, that they throw off his medication schedule. The petition also faults the Seattle Philippine Consulate, saying it promised Javar help and $300 for commissary but failed to deliver.
ICE has not publicly addressed the medical complaints in detail, focusing instead on its legal rationale, and has not said whether it considered supervised release given his illness. The Guardian said it had reached out to the agency, and to the Philippine embassy and consulate, for comment.
Javar’s case has drawn national attention because it runs counter to how the administration has described its enforcement priorities.
President Donald Trump and his allies said the deportation campaign of his second term would focus on “violent criminals” and the “worst of the worst.” But a Guardian analysis of government records found that the vast majority of people placed into deportation proceedings for the first time during the administration’s first year had no criminal conviction, and the Washington Post has reported that ICE is arresting soaring numbers of immigrants with no criminal record. Public sentiment has turned as such cases mount: a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll taken after ICE agents killed U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis in January found that 62% of Americans believed the agency had gone too far.
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