A federal judge in California has ordered the release of a Honduran man brought to the United States as a child, ruling that his detention by immigration authorities was unwarranted, according to court filings.
Courts have increasingly pushed back against President Donald Trump’s flagship mass deportation policy, citing what judges describe as procedural shortcomings in immigration enforcement—particularly in cases where individuals are detained without required legal safeguards.
Newsweek has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment via email outside office hours.
DACA Recipient Arrested 6 Times, Ordered Released
U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera, a Biden appointee, ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release Jose Francisco Orellana-Rivera, who entered the United States from Honduras in 2001 at age 4 and has lived in the country for more than two decades.
Orellana-Rivera was paroled into the country as a child and later received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, according to the court order. He is married to a U.S. citizen and has two U.S.-citizen children, per the filings.
He was arrested six times as an adult between 2016 and 2025, but all charges appear to have been dismissed, according to court filings. The ruling noted he has no criminal convictions.
The court found that immigration authorities violated his constitutional rights by detaining him without adequate procedural protections, with the judge writing that the government “violated the law by detaining Petitioner without a pre-detention hearing” and deprived him of due process by delaying meaningful review of his detention.
Judge Vera ordered that immigration officials “release Petitioner from custody forthwith” and barred authorities from re-detaining him without first providing a proper bond hearing.
Business Owner With No Record Ordered Released
In Montana, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris, an Obama appointee, ordered the release of Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, who has lived in the United States for 25 years and is the father of four U.S.-citizen children.
Court filings describe Orozco-Ramirez, who was born in Mexico, as a longtime community member who “single-handedly built a successful diesel repair business” and had no criminal record during his time in the United States.
The judge found that his continued detention without a bond hearing violated due process protections, concluding that the government’s position could not justify holding him without individualized review.
The court added that the government had not established that he posed a danger or flight risk and ruled that his detention without the opportunity for release on bond was unconstitutional.
Judge Morris ordered that he be released from custody within 24 hours, finding that “Orozco’s continued detention violates his constitutional rights.”
Bond Hearing Ordered in Manslaughter Case
In New York, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ordered a bond hearing for William Fabian Peralta-Malla, an Ecuadorian man detained by ICE after being charged, but not convicted, in a vehicular manslaughter case.
The court found that his continued detention without the opportunity for a bond hearing violated due process, even though the government argued he was subject to mandatory detention under the Laken Riley Act.
The Laken Riley Act is a 2025 law that expanded mandatory immigration detention to include migrants without legal status arrested for certain crimes, allowing detention based on charges alone rather than convictions.
Judge Torres noted that the government was relying solely on unproven criminal charges, writing that the petitioner “has not been adjudged guilty” and was being detained “based solely on an arrest and charge.”
The court concluded that detention without an individualized review posed a high risk of error, particularly where the individual is presumed innocent and has not been found to pose a danger or flight risk.
The judge ordered immigration authorities to provide a bond hearing within seven days, requiring the government to show clear and convincing evidence that continued detention is justified.
Surge of Litigation
Judges have repeatedly faulted ICE for failing to provide bond hearings or other due process protections, while administration officials have dismissed those rulings as the work of “activist judges” and accused the courts of obstructing immigration enforcement efforts.
A Politico analysis found that federal judges have ruled against ICE detention practices more than 10,000 times, about 90 percent of cases, amid a surge of litigation over a policy that seeks to hold large numbers of migrants without the opportunity to seek release while they fight deportation.
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