Federal judge orders release of Pasadena man who is plaintiff in lawsuit against immigration raids
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A federal judge on Thursday ordered the government to release a man arrested by ICE last week amid 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 Isaac Antonio Villegas Molina, a Pasadena resident who was detained a week ago during a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Williams also prohibited the government from redetaining Villegas without providing notice and a hearing before a “neutral adjudicator.” In her order, Williams noted that the government had not contested the request last week for Villegas’ release, “suggesting that his re-detention may have been unwarranted.”As of Thursday afternoon, Villegas’ immigration attorney said they were waiting 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 as they waited at a Pasadena bus stop.An immigration judge ordered Villegas, who is from Panama, released on a $5,000 bond the following month, and he had been checking in with ICE since then.
He is scheduled to go before an immigration judge on Friday on a motion to terminate removal proceedings against him.Immigration attorneys and advocates said they believed Villegas was detained in retaliation for the lawsuit.A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson 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 just absolute harassment,” Villegas’ immigration lawyer, Stacy Tolchin, said Thursday.The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s order Thursday.
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