Today immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir announced: “The government has issued me a stay of deportation.”

Ragbir, executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, along with CASA de Maryland, Detention Watch Network, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and the New York Immigration Coalition won the stay after filing a free speech lawsuit in U.S. federal district court that argues he has been targeted by federal immigration officials for deportation because of his activism.

“We thought it was a shot in the dark,” Ragbir said to his supporters today.

“You can’t deport a movement,” said his wife Amy Gottlieb, an immigrant rights attorney and advocate with the American Friends Service Committee.

Ragbir had been ordered to report to another check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday in Manhattan. Now ICE has told his lawyers his new deportation check-in is March 15. A permitted protest is still planned outside the ICE check-in office at 9 a.m. on Saturday.

Read the press release on Ravi Ragbir’s lawsuit and the stay of deportation here.

See more Democracy Now! coverage of Ravi Ragbir’s case and activism for immigrants:

Exclusive: Ravi Ragbir Speaks Out After Being Freed from “Unnecessarily Cruel” ICE Detention

Ravi Ragbir of the New Sanctuary Coalition: I Was Detained Because of Our Immigration Activism

Breaking: Fed. Judge Orders Immediate Release of Immigrant Rights Leader Ravi Ragbir from Detention

Amy Goodman: Trump’s Roundup of Immigrant Leaders Has Begun

Letter from an Immigration Jail: Hear the Words of Detained Immigrant Leader Ravi Ragbir

Is ICE Targeting Immigration Activists? Family Members of Detained & Deported Leaders Speak Out