Alireza Doroudi, the University of Alabama doctoral student detained by federal immigration, on Thursday made “the difficult decision” to request voluntary deportation to Iran, his attorney said.

“He turned and looked at me and said: ‘I love this country, but they don’t want me here so I will go home,’” attorney David Rozas told AL.com.

Doroudi has been in federal custody since ICE agents showed up at his Tuscaloosa apartment around 3 a.m. on March 25.

The decision will allow him to avoid “prolonged and unnecessary detention,” Rozas said.

Rozas said the only charges against Doroudi were the revocation of his student F-1 visa and an allegation that he was “not in status.”

But documentation about the visa revocation stipulated the revocation upon Doroudi’s removal from the United States, Rozas said.

Rozas said this means “that the initial reason for arrest 45 days ago was an error.”

Based on this fact, Rozas said the Department of Homeland Security signaled their intention to drop Doroudi’s charge during Thursday’s hearing.

But Judge Maithe Gonzalez called for additional hearings which would have required Doroudi to remain in detention as the legal process played out.

“When due process is delayed or denied, when charges are sustained without standing, and when individuals are forced to choose between uncertain length of detention in a country they feel no longer wants them, or leaving voluntarily, we must ask what kind of precedent we are setting not just for foreign students, but for fairness and justice in America,” Rozas said.

Doroudi was first held at the Pickens County Jail and then transferred to federal custody in Jena, La.

Following his arrest, the Department of Homeland Security put out at a statement alleging that Doroudi was a “national security” concern.

“ICE HSI made this arrest in accordance with the State Department’s revocation of Doroudi’s student visa. This individual posed significant national security concerns,” a DHS spokesperson has previously said.

On April 17, Judge Maithe González denied Doroudi’s bond saying he failed to meet the burden of showing that he was not a threat to national security.

González also ruled Doroudi was a flight risk due to being in the country with a revoked F-1 visa, no family in the country and what she said were scarce ties to the community.