Maine Engineer With H-1B Visa Sues ICE Over Long Day in Custody
Trump administration policies have added limits, costs and for one industry-employed visa holder, a humiliating detention
A Colombian engineer who studied in Maine and was employed by GEI Consultants in Portland, was detained by ICE agents for a day after saying he identified himself and had reached for his phone when they smashed his car window and handcuffed him. The car was left in a condition similar to the one shown in this photo.
A Maine engineer from Colombia, working legally under an H-1B visa, was detained, shackled and held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for a long day in January during an operation meant to sweep up illegal immigrants in the state for deportation.
ICE released the engineer, Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Muñoz, after 12 hours, but now he is suing its parent, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, and an agent who held him for wrongful detention.
Carvajal-Muñoz had studied for a masters degree at the University of Maine before accepting a job related to bridge soil and foundation analysis at GEI Consultants in Portland.
His detention and lawsuit come in a year when engineering and other firms face sharply reduced opportunities to fill open positions with non-citizens using the H-1B visa program as the Trump administration limits legal immigration.
On the morning of Jan. 22, while Carvajal-Muñoz drove to work in Portland, ICE agents involved in the sweep stopped him and sought identification. According to his lawsuit filed in federal district court in Portland, he displayed a REAL ID driver's license while at the wheel with the driver's side window still closed and was reaching for his phone when an agent smashed the window and placed him in a full-body shackle.
What followed, according to Carvajal-Muñoz, was a day of forced riding along as the agents—one wore a mask—seemingly sought to deliberately humiliate him by criss-crossing the area but never returning him to his still-running car with the keys inside. Later in the , the agents took him with other prisoners to a parking lot where they were offered a chance to urinate and then drove to a detention center in Burlington, Mass., more than 100 miles away, where Carvajal-Muñoz was held for a short while before being abruptly released and forced to make his way back to his car by bus.
Carvajal-Muñoz, whose case is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, claims that he was deliberately profiled by ICE agents based on his physical appearance. "Even though I followed all the rules, federal agents targeted me based on my race," he said in a press release issued when the lawsuit was filed.
An ICE spokesman says it doesn't comment on litigation. It isn't clear if Carvajal-Muñoz still is employed by GEI Consultants. A spokeswoman for the company, citing privacy concerns, declined to comment on that or on the company's use of H-1B visas to fill positions.
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Rule Changes for H1-B Visas
The case comes at a difficult moment for employers that in the past have been able to hire foreign nationals holding H-1B visas to fill vacancies. Under H-1B rules, employers must state that they were unable to fill the position with a non-immigrant. Federal rules allow 85,000 new H-1B visas each year, 20,000 of which are for higher-paid employees.
About 40,000 of the half million H-1B visa holders in the U.S. work in architecture and engineering, according to data cited by the American Council of Engineering Companies.
But in September, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation that requires employers to pay an additional $100,000 per H-1B visa.
The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program, Trump said in the proclamation, "was created to bring temporary workers into the United States to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor."
In February, the administration issued new rules changing the selection criteria for the visas to be granted, from a random process to one weighted to favor higher-paid employees. That change applies to the 2027 H-1B cap registration season.
Last year ACEC opposed the change, noting that it was expected to cut the number or engineering and architecture-related granted visas by 48,000.
Despite the fact that the average annual pay for a civil engineer in 2024 was $100,000, ACEC argued when the rule change was proposed, that the new weighting method would tip the selection process in favor of international technology companies that could afford to pay more.
