A 21-year-old Wisconsin State Patrol trooper who enforces the law on the state's highways was himself taken into federal immigration custody this week as he waited to board a domestic flight — and on Friday, after his lawyers and a member of Congress intervened, he was reported to be on his way out of detention. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Carel Aaron Van Der Merwe on November 5 at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wisconsin, as he waited to board a domestic flight, according to the Department of Homeland Security and his lawyers. He was held at the immigration detention facility in Dodge County. DHS says he overstayed a 2019 admission and that neither his federal work permit nor his place on his father's pending asylum application gives him lawful status. His lawyers say the family came legally from South Africa when he was a child, has waited seven years for an asylum interview, and that he holds work authorization valid until 2030.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
The case has drawn attention far beyond Wisconsin because it puts a hard legal line in front of anyone living in the United States on a work permit with a pending case: a work permit is permission to work, not immigration status, and it does not stop immigration officers from making an arrest. It also carries a second warning that reaches travellers directly — DHS told ABC News it has reversed what it called a Biden-era policy that let people in his situation fly domestically, making a domestic flight itself a point of contact with federal enforcement.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
What happened at the airport
Van Der Merwe lives in Onalaska and works out of the State Patrol's Tomah post. On November 5 he was at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, waiting to board a domestic flight, when ICE officers took him into custody. His law firm, Christopher & De León, said he presented his documentation and explained his immigration circumstances to the officers. According to his attorney, Marc Christopher, the officers disregarded his position and credentials and placed him in handcuffs and shackles despite his role as a law enforcement officer, then transported him to the immigration detention facility in Dodge County.
Source: SSBCrack News — Wisconsin State Trooper Detained by ICE During Airport Operation (Nov. 6, 2026)
He graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute with a degree in criminal justice and has served as a Wisconsin state trooper for about a year. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation told FOX6 Milwaukee that he has worked for the State Patrol since July 13, 2025, and FOX6 reported that the agency's hiring rules allow noncitizens with valid work authorization to serve — the same work authorization at the centre of his immigration case.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
What DHS says, and what his lawyers say
The Department of Homeland Security told WISN 12 that Van Der Merwe entered the United States in March 2019 with permission to stay until September 2019 and “overstayed his admission.” In a statement reported by SSBCrack News, DHS said: “In defiance of our nation's laws, he overstayed his admission,” and asserted that he would receive due process while remaining in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. DHS added, in statements reported by WISN and FOX6, that work authorization and a pending application “do not confer legal status.”
Source: SSBCrack News — Wisconsin State Trooper Detained by ICE During Airport Operation (Nov. 6, 2026)
His lawyers tell a different story about the same facts. They say the family entered legally from South Africa when he was a child and followed the legal immigration process, that he is included as a dependent on his father's pending asylum application, and that the family has waited seven years for an asylum interview that has not come. Attorney Marc Christopher urged DHS to support his immediate release, called on Wisconsin's congressional delegation to review the circumstances of the detention, and argued that detaining a man whose job is enforcing the law contradicts the agency's stated goal of targeting people who break it. Christopher initially sought his release on bond, a process he anticipated could take around two weeks.
Source: SSBCrack News — Wisconsin State Trooper Detained by ICE During Airport Operation (Nov. 6, 2026)
Both accounts can be accurate at once. A person admitted for a fixed period who stays past it is out of status from the day the admission ends. A later asylum filing does not restore that status: it can make the applicant eligible for a work permit, it generally stops unlawful presence from counting toward the 3- and 10-year bars while a bona fide application is pending, and it entitles the applicant to a decision before removal — but none of that is lawful status in the way a visa or a green card is. That gap, not a dispute over whether he may work, is the legal ground this case stands on.
The backlog behind the case
The family's seven-year wait sits inside a national backlog. The affirmative asylum backlog at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exceeded 1.4 million cases at the end of fiscal 2025, according to an interim final rule DHS published on July 28, 2026. The same rule counted 444,724 pending affirmative applications, as of December 11, 2025, that had been filed more than one year after the applicant's last entry, and it allows asylum officers to send applicants who lack a lawful basis to remain straight to immigration court without an interview — the same distinction DHS drew in this case.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
On detention law, because DHS's own account says Van Der Merwe was admitted to the country, analysts note he is likely held under the discretionary detention statute, 8 U.S.C. 1226(a), rather than the mandatory provisions applied to people who entered without inspection — a framework that allows release by ICE itself or bond set by an immigration judge, consistent with both his lawyers' bond request and Friday's reported release. On the asylum claim itself, he is 21, but under the asylum statute a child keeps derivative eligibility if he was under 21 when the parent's application was filed; the harder question is procedural, because his removal case is now before an immigration judge while the family application sits with USCIS, so his lawyers may need to press his own claim in court.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
Friday's turn: a congressman calls the Secretary, and release is reported
On Friday, November 6, the case moved quickly. ABC News and WISN reported that his lawyers planned to seek bond. Later that day, WBAY reported his lawyers' statement that he would be released from the Dodge County facility on an order of supervision while his removal case continues — an arrangement that requires regular check-ins with ICE and leaves the immigration proceedings in place. ICE had not publicly confirmed a release in those reports.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
Separately, the office of Representative Derrick Van Orden, who represents Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District — the district that includes Onalaska and Tomah — said the congressman contacted DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin directly after learning of the detention, and that the trooper will be released from custody. The two Friday accounts point the same way — release under supervision rather than continued detention — but as of Friday evening the precise conditions and timing rested on the lawyers' and the congressman's statements, not on a public ICE confirmation.
Source: WGLR — Trooper detained by ICE will be released, Rep. Van Orden's office says (Nov. 6, 2026)
Why this matters to Punjabi and immigrant families — and to truckers
Thousands of Punjabi and other immigrant families in the United States live in exactly the legal space this case exposes: a valid work permit, a pending application, and no underlying status. Many work in trucking, warehouses, gas stations and public-facing jobs on the strength of that permit. Van Der Merwe's detention is a reminder that the permit answers only the employment question — it is not a shield against arrest, and after DHS's stated reversal on domestic flying, it is not a safe-conduct pass at an airport either. Families in this position should keep copies of their paperwork with them, know that a pending case and a work card are different things from status, and take immigration advice before travelling — this report is information about a reported case, not legal advice for any individual situation.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)
What happens next
The next markers are whether ICE publicly confirms the release and on what supervision conditions, when an immigration judge first hears his removal case, and whether his employment with the State Patrol is affected — the Patrol had not issued a public statement on his status in the reports reviewed. Politically, DHS frames the case as ordinary enforcement against an overstay, while his lawyers have asked Wisconsin's congressional delegation for answers; with Democrats taking control of Congress in January and promising oversight of ICE, analysts expect cases like this to become exhibits in that fight. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when ICE confirms the release terms.
Source: Immigration Analytics — Wisconsin Trooper ICE Arrest: Why a Work Permit Isn't Status (Nov. 6, 2026)