Jose Pedro Hernandez Lupercio, a Mexican national who has lived in Michigan for roughly three decades, was fishing with his sons near Brethren when conservation officers approached his group for what looked like an ordinary license check. By the time the encounter ended, Hernandez Lupercio was in federal immigration custody, where he would remain for nearly four months. The episode has since become a test case for whether a state wildlife agency helped hand a father over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, something the agency flatly rejects, according to reporting by Michigan Advance.
Homeland Security and DNR's Own Legal Team Point to a Joint Operation
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson described the arrest as the product of "a targeted operation led by the USFS in conjunction with the DNR," naming both the U.S. Forest Service and Michigan's Department of Natural Resources as partners. That account lines up with what Hernandez Lupercio's own attorneys say happened. Lawyers at the Southwest Detroit Immigrant and Refugee Center, who represented him through the ensuing legal fight, describe the license check as cover for something else entirely. "This stop was a pretext," the center wrote of the operation.
The clearest paper trail comes from Hernandez Lupercio's own sworn petition. In a habeas corpus opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Maloney of the Western District of Michigan recounted that Hernandez Lupercio was stopped by DNR agents "while fishing with his sons in the Manistee River." Once he could not prove his legal status on the spot, according to the court's opinion, the DNR agents called in ICE, which took him into custody. Separate filings from both his defense team and U.S. Department of Justice attorneys reference the same sequence without disputing DNR's presence at the scene. Judge Maloney ultimately found Hernandez Lupercio's detention unconstitutional and ordered a bond hearing within five business days — a ruling that led to his release in early February, roughly 110 days after he was first stopped.
DNR Has Given Two Different Explanations — Neither Matching DHS
Despite the DHS statement and the court record, Michigan's Department of Natural Resources maintains its officers had nothing to do with the arrest itself. A department spokesperson told Michigan Advance that conservation officers were on-site checking licenses, but that a U.S. Forest Service employee made first contact and discovered an outstanding warrant, with DNR staff staying on only as backup. When Michigan Advance pressed for more detail, department spokesman Ed Golder offered a second version, describing a joint natural-resource enforcement operation with the Forest Service and insisting his officers were "not present to enforce federal immigration laws" and detained no one over immigration status. The Forest Service, for its part, told the outlet it does not carry out immigration enforcement, and did not directly address DHS's claim that its officers led the operation.
Nothing in Michigan law stops a state agency from working alongside ICE, since Michigan has never adopted sanctuary-state protections. That legal backdrop sits in tension with Attorney General Dana Nessel's repeated public warnings this year that local and state agencies take on legal exposure whenever they team up with federal immigration authorities — a point an assistant attorney general in her office reinforced at a February roundtable on the risks such partnerships carry for municipalities. Nessel's office declined to comment specifically on the Hernandez Lupercio case, referring questions to DNR.
State lawmakers have tried to close that gap. Detroit Democratic Sen. Stephanie Chang has championed a three-bill package — covering face coverings worn by federal agents, restrictions on state agencies sharing personal data with immigration authorities, and limits on enforcement at schools, hospitals, courthouses and houses of worship — aimed at reining in how state and local resources get pulled into federal immigration actions. Two of the three bills cleared committee in March and were referred to the full Senate for consideration; the data-sharing measure has since stalled. None had reached a floor vote as Hernandez Lupercio's case wound through the courts.
Advocates Say the Case Fits a Broader Pattern
Christine Sauvé of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center called the case emblematic of a trend her organization has tracked across the state. "This man was fishing with his family," Sauvé said, adding that no one should have to fear separation from their loved ones while enjoying the outdoors. She noted that DNR has no formal agreement obligating it to assist ICE, and argued that pulling conservation staff into immigration enforcement diverts resources meant for protecting natural resources. Her concerns track with what Bridge Michigan has documented statewide: ICE arrests in Michigan nearly tripled between the first ten months of 2024 and the same period in 2025, with most of those detained having no criminal record at all.
Held at the Midwest's Largest Immigration Detention Center
Hernandez Lupercio, who is married and has three U.S.-citizen children, spent his detention at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin — an 1,800-bed facility operated by private prison contractor GEO Group and the largest ICE detention site in the Midwest. The facility has faced intense scrutiny well beyond this case: ICE's own account confirms that 56-year-old detainee Nenko Gantchev died there in December after being found unresponsive in his cell, and detainees staged a hunger strike in April over what they described as inadequate medical care and food. Government data reviewed by Michigan Advance through a Freedom of Information Act request shows Hernandez Lupercio's bond was set at $7,000, with no criminal convictions or pending charges on his record.
An Unresolved Case in a Community Watching Closely
Hernandez Lupercio's underlying immigration case — including his application to cancel his removal — remained active as of Michigan Advance's Aug. 12 report, with an individual hearing that had been scheduled for March. For Detroit's Mexican and broader Latino community, the case has become a cautionary example of how a routine outing can become an entry point into the immigration system, regardless of criminal history or decades of ties to the state.
