Copyright denverpost
Joining a wave of similar rulings elsewhere in the country, a federal judge in Denver ordered the release of a man held for five months in Aurora’s detention center and ruled that federal immigration authorities’ new policy of denying bail to longtime, undocumented residents of the United States “likely violates federal law.” The ruling, released Friday night, also temporarily prohibits federal immigration authorities from deporting or transferring that man, Nestor Gutierrez, and similar immigrants without legal status currently being detained in Colorado. U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez’s order appears to apply to detained immigrants who’ve lived in the U.S. for years and who, for more than two decades, would’ve been able to seek temporary release while their immigration cases play out. Her order prevents the transfers or deportations while the rest of the lawsuit continues. As immigration arrests have surged and detention centers have swelled, the Trump administration this year unilaterally directed immigration courts to reinterpret longstanding federal law and to stop granting bail hearings for longtime residents. Immigration attorneys and advocates have argued that the policy is intended to keep immigrants detained to encourage them to either request their own removal or stop fighting their deportation order. During court proceedings in Aurora this month, a Denver Post reporter watched several detainees request their own removal. Some had previously filed asylum claims or said they feared returning to their home countries but chose to stop fighting their cases in order to end their detention. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Gutierrez, a native of El Salvador and married father of two who’s lived in the Denver area since 1999. He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in May. A few weeks later, a judge said he was unable to consider bail for Gutierrez under the government’s new policy, and Gutierrez has been held in Aurora since. In court filings, ICE argued that Gutierrez was not suffering “irreparable harm” by his continued detention. Rodriguez disagreed, in part citing Gutierrez’s status as his family’s “main financial provider.” “What is unique to Mr. Gutierrez, and other noncitizens like him, is that he is being unlawfully detained without bond,” she wrote. “Even if Mr. Gutierrez is not ultimately successful in his efforts to avoid removal, the record here shows that if he had been provided with a bond hearing, he would have been granted a conditional release because he is unlikely to abscond or be a danger to the community. This would give him and his family time to prepare for their future, pending his possible removal.” Rodriguez’s order also essentially prevents ICE from sidestepping the lawsuit by deporting detainees or sending them to other facilities where there may be no legal challenge to the bail policy. After Rodriguez ordered ICE to release Gutierrez in her Friday evening order, Gutierrez’s legal team traveled to the detention center. But ICE refused to release him, said Hans Meyer, one of the attorneys representing Gutierrez. He was finally released Saturday morning and will remain out of detention until he receives a bail hearing. “The most important thing is that (the court) agreed with us that ICE’s interpretation of the law is incorrect and that people who entered the country without permission, once they’re here, are at least eligible to seek a bond,” Meyer said. He filed the lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. Representatives for ICE and the U.S. departments of justice and homeland security did not return messages seeking comment. A spokesperson for ICE also did not return a message seeking comment about Gutierrez’s release. The ruling joins a mounting pile of judicial orders from across the country undercutting the federal government’s efforts to deny bail hearings to immigrants without legal status who’ve been in the U.S. for years. In her order, Rodriguez wrote that 36 courts nationwide have rejected a senior immigration court’s reinterpretation of immigration law, out of 39 that have considered it. Seeking the release of individual detainees, lawyers in Colorado have filed several challenges to the policy, and at least one court here has already ruled that the policy is wrong, according to Colorado Politics. Meyer and the ACLU will next be in court in mid-November, when they’ll seek to certify the lawsuit as a class-action suit. Rodriguez declined to certify the class action in her Friday order, instead writing that she needed a better understanding of how many immigrants are similar to Gutierrez and would be included in the class. Meyer and the ACLU are asking Rodriguez to declare ICE’s policy illegal and to determine how to best remedy it. Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.
