Ecuadoran man released after federal judge's ICE order
An Ecuadoran man was released by immigration authorities on Tuesday, one day after a federal judge said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had failed to comply with a court order requiring a bond hearing.
Graham Ojala-Barbour, an attorney for Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, told Fox News Digital that Robles was released from detention in Texas.
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said in a three-page ruling on Monday that ICE had failed to comply with a Jan. 14 court order requiring a bond hearing for Robles within seven days.
The order also stated that Robles must be immediately released if ICE failed to provide the hearing.
Schiltz wrote that the failure was part of a broader pattern, saying the agency had disregarded dozens of court orders in recent weeks, causing significant hardship for detainees, including prolonged detention and forced transfers.
He said the court’s patience was "at an end," and ordered Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, to appear in person and explain why he should not be held in contempt.
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"The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed," the judge wrote.
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Because Robles has since been released, the court said Lyons will no longer be required to appear.
Schiltz said the court had been "extremely patient" with the Trump administration, despite its decision to send thousands of immigration agents to Minnesota without putting adequate systems in place to handle the "hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result."
NBC News reported that Robles is a citizen of Ecuador who entered the United States "without inspection as a minor, in or around 1999," according to court filings.