
First of all no he wasn’t allowed to stay, second of all you are confused here, and i don’t blame you given all the other BS you are apparently reading. He stayed with no application of anything for years and years and years. I’ll find the page for it in a sec. Thats why I said its misleading, to hopefully stop you from being mislead but.
yes he stayed for years with no application. then he was found out and brought before a court. the court allowed him to stay as long as he applied for legal permanent residency. they even granted him the right to work while his application was being processed. at the time of his arrest, he was in the legal system, following the legal process exactly as he was told to by a legal court
and there are THOUSANDS of other examples of people who never overstayed a visa and never were in the country illegally and still have been detained. i sent you screenshots of some of them but there have been 4,400 habeas corpus petitions filed for people in this situation and probably thousands more who don’t have a lawyer