Victory! Family Reunites After Judge Orders Release from ICE Custody

LINCOLN, Neb. — An Omaha family is back together more than two months after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid separated them. Yesterday afternoon, a judge ruled that Maria Reynosa Jacinto was being held unlawfully.

Reynosa Jacinto had been in ICE custody since the June worksite raid at Omaha’s Glenn Valley Foods. She is a single mother who has been working in the United States for 20 years to support herself and her daughter, a U.S. citizen. After an immigration court judge granted her release on bond in July, ICE filed an automatic stay that unilaterally blocked her release.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Reynosa Jacinto, arguing that ICE's automatic stay unlawfully violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and extended beyond ICE’s authority. At a hearing yesterday, a federal judge ruled from the bench and granted the request to release Reynosa Jacinto.

She returned home yesterday afternoon.

Jennifer Houlden, acting legal director at the ACLU of Nebraska, said:

“The ruling was unequivocal: our client was detained unlawfully when an automatic stay triggered by ICE prevented her from posting the bond that an immigration court judge had set. We are relieved that the federal court acted swiftly and that she is now home with her daughter. As officials work to expand ICE detention in our state, this ruling should send a clear message about the harm that we are already seeing in Nebraska. Our state’s motto of Equality Before the Law must mean what it says. If immigration authorities continue violating people’s rights, they will continue to see us in court.”

As Reynosa Jacinto returned home, Gov. Pillen and state officials announced new state-federal agreements to increase Nebraska’s role in detaining immigrants, including repurposing a minimum-security prison facility in McCook to serve as a detention camp.

Reynosa Jacinto’s lawsuit linked ICE's new use of automatic stays to its “interim guidance” that asserts nearly all detained immigrants in removal proceedings are ineligible for release on bond. The no-bond practice is facing a separate national class action lawsuit.

Like many of the people taken in the June Omaha ICE raid, Reynosa Jacinto has no criminal convictions and was the primary earner for her family. Her case is one of two tied to that raid that the ACLU of Nebraska has recently filed. On Monday, the civil rights organization launched a case on behalf of another Omaha woman, Sabina Carmona-Lorenzo. In July, another ACLU of Nebraska client left ICE custody almost two weeks after posting bond after officials acknowledged "an oversight” in his case.