Dr. Ezequiel Veliz, a Venezuelan national who was detained by ICE, is set to be released from custody soon.Courtesy GoFundMeA Venezuelan doctor who has lived for nearly a decade in the Rio Grande Valley will soon be freed from immigration detention.U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, announced the pending release of Dr. Ezequiel Veliz on social media late Wednesday, April 15.Article continues below this ad“Dr. Ezequiel Veliz will be home soon! He was in the states (sic) for nine years with his U.S. citizen husband and practicing medicine in an underserved South Texas community when ICE targeted him,” Castro said.“He should have never been locked away. I’m glad to hear that he will be released and am grateful to all of the doctors and folks who spoke out,” he said.Friends of the doctor who organized a GoFundMe to help pay for his legal fees confirmed the news.MySA LogoMake us a Preferred Source on Google to see more of us when you search.Add Preferred Source“Joseph is on his way now to Laredo to bring (Veliz) home. The courts granted him bond prior to his actual court date next week,” Johnny Moreno, one of the campaign’s co-organizers, said, referring to Veliz’s husband, Joseph Williams.Article continues below this adMore For You“The important thing is that Ezequiel will be able to sleep comfortably at home until the process continues,” Moreno said.Veliz and Williams had been traveling to Houston as part of a cross-state move when they were halted at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita on Monday, April 6, according to a post Williams shared on Facebook. All vehicular traffic traveling north from the Valley must pass through the checkpoints, located along Interstate 69-C (also called U.S. 281) and Interstate 69-E (also called U.S. 77) about 60 miles north of the Valley’s population centers. Williams described how Border Patrol agents detained Veliz “because they believed he overstayed his visa.”Veliz had a work permit that allowed him to serve at Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco while he completed UT Health RGV’s residency program. He had entered the country under a program that offered Venezuelan refugees temporary protected status — a protection that the Trump administration unilaterally revoked in October 2025.Article continues below this adMySA reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment about Veliz’s detention but did not hear back by the time of publication. However, a CBP spokesperson told ABC affiliate, KRGV that Veliz’s pending green card application through his husband did not qualify as a valid visa.A second Venezuelan doctor, Rubeliz “Bibi” Bolivar, remains detained after she and her 5-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, were taken into custody at McAllen International Airport on Saturday, April 11. Bolivar, who has been in the country for a decade, had been traveling to California for a scheduled asylum hearing. Just a few hours before news broke of Dr. Veliz’s pending release, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus issued a statement calling for both doctors to be released.“We were told immigration enforcement would focus on the criminals, the ‘worst of the worst.’ These were neither. They were the best of the best,” MALC said.April 16, 2026South Texas ReporterDina Arévalo has been a journalist in the Rio Grande Valley since 2004 and is a graduate from Baylor University. She was previously with The Monitor in McAllen covering Hidalgo County governments and KRGV as a weekend technical director and associate producer.