A federal judge on Thursday ordered the government to release a man arrested by ICE last week because of his involvement in a class action lawsuit challenging immigration raids in Los Angeles.
U.S. District Judge Michelle Williams ordered the government to immediately release Pasadena resident Isaac Antonio Villegas Molina, who was detained during a check-in with ICE a week ago. Williams also barred the government from re-detaining Villegas without notice and a hearing before a “neutral adjudicator.”
In his order, Williams noted that the government had not opposed the request last week for Villegas’ release, “suggesting that his re-detention may be inappropriate.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Villegas’ immigration attorney said they were waiting for confirmation that he had been released.
Villegas sued the federal government last year after he and two other day laborers were arrested by immigration agents on June 18 while they waited at a Pasadena bus stop. An immigration judge ordered Villegas, who is from Panama, released next month on $5,000 bond and he has since been checked with ICE.
He is scheduled to go before an immigration judge on Friday on a motion to end the removal proceedings against him.
Immigration lawyers and advocates said they believed Villegas was detained in retaliation for the lawsuit. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security previously told the Times that Villegas was detained after “multiple violations of his supervised release — including missing required check-ins.”
Villegas’ attorney said he has followed every rule of his supervised release.
“This is complete harassment,” Villegas’ immigration attorney, Stacey Tolchin, said Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the judge’s order Thursday.
Following Villegas’ arrest last week, Tolchin filed a habeas petition in federal court, challenging his imprisonment and demanding his immediate release. In it, Tolchin described the lawsuit as “one of the first cases filed challenging the Trump administration’s immigration patrols as a violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
In a separate application for a temporary restraining order seeking Villegas’ release, Tolchin said immigration officials arrested and detained his client “without any legal reason, in violation of precedent and due process.”
Tolchin said, “By doing so the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sought to change the detainee’s placement on the Adelanto immigration calendar from the current immigration judge, and shamelessly engaged in forum shopping for a more favorable judge.”
Tolchin argued that the Adelanto immigration court is “a friendly forum for DHS” and said that four out of five immigration judges “have an asylum denial rate of about 88 percent.”
According to Tolchin, Judge Villegas is scheduled to leave on Friday, with a denial rate of only 55%.
“This forum shopping is consistent with DHS’s efforts to undermine the neutrality of the immigration removal process,” Tolchin said in his filing.
In granting the temporary restraining order, Williams ordered the government to return Villegas’ removal proceedings to the “nondetained docket.”
“We welcome this quick and much-needed relief for Isaac, which is testament to the blatant illegality of the government’s actions,” said Lauren Wilfong, an attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “ICE must be held accountable for their egregious and indefensible actions.”
Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Public Counsel, other groups and private attorneys filed a lawsuit — now known as Vasquez Perdomo vs. Mullin – On behalf of several immigrant rights groups, Villegas and two other immigrants were picked up at a bus stop, and two U.S. citizens, one of whom was held despite showing his identification to agents.
Villegas was waiting with other day laborers, including Pedro Vasquez Perdomo and Carlos Osorto, when masked armed men aggressively approached and arrested them “based on their appearance,” Tolchin said in the habeas petition. The arrests came as part of Operation At Large, a massive immigration crackdown in Southern California.
The Vasquez Perdomo lawsuit resulted in an initial temporary restraining order that was upheld by the 9th Circuit. That restraining order was later stayed by the Supreme Court. The case is still ongoing, with a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for September.
