Davy Rothbart and Mamady Camara at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor in December 2025. Camara was denied bond and remains at North Lake. Rothbart sees Camara’s detention as unjust. “There’s just no way he’s a flight risk,” he says. | Davy Rothbart
On April 1, 2026, Mamady Camara, an asylum seeker from Guinea living in Ypsilanti, “celebrated” his twenty-first birthday in a cell at North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan.
Two months earlier, on January 28, Camara had gone to the ICE Detroit Field Office for what he thought would be a routine check-in appointment. Instead, after facing a series of questions from ICE agents about check-in photos he had allegedly failed to upload correctly through DHS’s mobile app, he was arrested and taken to North Lake, where he’s been ever since.
“Camara was arrested after multiple violations of the alternatives to detention program,” writes an ICE spokesperson in an email to the Observer. “He was initially apprehended by Border Patrol in 2023 near Lukeville, Arizona and was found to have illegally entered the United States. He was released under the previous administration. Generally speaking, neither work authorization nor the mere application for an immigration benefit confer legal status to remain in the United States. Furthermore, violations of conditions of release can result in custody redeterminations where subjects are detained while an immigration case proceeds through the court in accordance with due process.”
Related: Weathering ICE
Camara had been working as a caregiver for Hal Rothbart since last year. The eighty-nine-year-old navy veteran spent most of his career as a facilities manager at U-M’s student health service, but eight years ago a stroke left him immobile and nonverbal. Rothbart’s son, Davy, says that his father and Camara have grown very close, bonding in particular over their shared love of basketball.
“My dad’s been going to Michigan games ever since moving to Ann Arbor in 1968, but he hadn’t gone in years before Mamady came into our lives,” he says. “Mamady really pushed to make it happen, saying, ‘We can get him there, no problem.’ Thanks to Mamady, we got my dad into a wheelchair, into the car, and into the arena. My dad was so happy.”
Hal Rothbart and his wife, Barbara Brodsky Rothbart, who was a Freedom Rider in the 1960s, became so fond of Camara that they even spoke with a lawyer about adopting him. Because he was over the age of eighteen, they were told it would not be possible.
When Camara was sent to North Lake, the Rothbart family set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for his legal costs. (As the Obsever went to press, it had raised just shy of $30,000.)
On February 10, Camara’s attorney petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus—a judicial order compelling law enforcement authorities to bring a detained person before a court and justify their imprisonment. In a March 9 ruling, District Judge Jane M. Beckering conditionally granted the petition, finding that Camara’s detention violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process and directing the DHS to either provide a bond hearing or immediately release Camara from custody.
A bond hearing subsequently took place, but Camara was deemed a flight risk and therefore sent back to North Lake. Although immigration judges must consider a variety of factors when determining whether to release a detained noncitizen on bond—such as whether the person has a fixed address in the U.S., how long they have been in the country, and their employment history—they ultimately retain broad discretion.
“There’s just no way he’s a flight risk,” says Davy Rothbart. “He lives in Ypsi with his cousins. Dozens of letters were written on his behalf expressing how important he is to our community.”
Bond hearings in immigration cases have decreased significantly in recent months. According to data analyzed by nonprofit group Mobile Pathways and reported by Reuters, 70 percent fewer hearings were held nationwide in February—1,337, down from 4,479 in January; 326 people were granted bond, compared with 1,086 in January.
The decline follows a February decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act—one the American Immigration Council warns could have “staggering ramifications.” Whereas historically only noncitizens in the process of seeking admission at U.S. ports of entry qualified as “applicants for admission”—making them subject to mandatory detention without bond—now anyone who entered the U.S. without inspection qualifies, regardless of how long they have resided in the country.
Since the bond hearing, Brodsky Rothbart has continued to raise awareness about Camara’s circumstances. At the Ann Arbor No Kings protest in March, she handed out a hundred flyers and also spoke briefly with Yousef Rabhi, the Washtenaw County Commissioner for District 8 running to be Ann Arbor’s next mayor.
Local organizer Sasha Gusikhin, who runs Aphasia Community Friendship Center, a support group for stroke survivors attended by Hal Rothbart, recently hosted a fundraiser concert at Canterbury House. Gusikhin speaks with Mamady over the phone most days. “He always asks how I’m doing and things like what I had for lunch that day, telling me to make sure I am getting enough rest. That’s the kind of person he is,” she says.
“Mamady was still a boy when he came to us, yet he has so much courage,” says Brodsky Rothbart. “I know that because he has told me about the hardships he endured and the journey he made to get to this country. He was passing that courage on to Hal before ICE detained him. Despite everything, he is tender; he has no hate in his heart.”
According to court documents and written testimony, Camara was orphaned at the age of nine and taken in by his uncle, who had promised Camara’s father he would care for Camara and send him to school. Instead, his uncle put him to work selling water on the streets of Conakry, Guinea’s capital.
During protests in 2019 against Guinea’s then-President, Alpha Condé, Camara, then age fourteen, was arrested by military police, who, he testified, “beat [him] with the butts of their guns, batons, and whipped [him] with a belt.” While imprisoned, he was denied food and only provided with water once a day.
Released from prison but too scared to return to his uncle’s house, he ended up on the streets before finding work for a couple; but after experiencing sexual abuse, he fled the country, eventually making it to the U.S. through Mexico. At the U.S.-Mexico border, he recalls, he was “stripped naked and mugged” by a group of masked men.
When I spoke with Camara, on a patchy line from North Lake, he told me he was able to watch the National Championship game between U-M and UConn. “I like America,” he added. “My life is here. I want to return to my community, to care for Hal.”
A removal hearing, where an immigration judge determines whether a noncitizen should be deported, was recently scheduled for April 14, but has been pushed back at the request of Camara’s attorney, with a new date yet to be set. Meanwhile, the Rothbarts have found help to fill in for Hal’s care. They continue to advocate for Camara’s release.
Flashback: My Heart Is an Idiot (Jan. 2013)