Second Bloomington immigration detainee wins federal court order for bond hearing
A federal judge ordered immigration officials to give Manuel Alejandro Nadal Ortiz a bond hearing by Oct. 22, or release him. The government must report compliance by Oct. 23. He is the second Bloomington man arrested Sept. 1 to win a similar ruling.
A second Bloomington man detained by federal immigration agents on Sept. 1 has won a court ruling requiring the government to give him a bond hearing or release him from custody.
In an opinion and judgment issued on Thursday (Oct. 15), a U.S. district judge ruled that Manuel Alejandro Nadal Ortiz could not lawfully be held under the government’s mandatory-detention interpretation of federal immigration law. Nadal-Ortiz is a Venezuelan who was detailed in Bloomington by immigration officials on Sept. 1.
The judge ordered the government to give Nadal Ortiz an individualized bond hearing within five business days or release him immediately. That works out to a deadline of Oct. 22. The government has to report back to the court by the day after the deadline that the bond hearing took place, including the outcome of any bond hearing.
The ruling does not order Nadal Ortiz’s unconditional release. An immigration judge could still deny bond after considering his individual circumstances.
Nadal Ortiz was arrested in the parking lot of Bloomington’s west-side Walmart along with Cesar Augusto Cepeda Gomez. Both men, who worked as delivery drivers, were eventually transferred to an immigration detention facility in Michigan.
Cepeda Gomez won a similar federal court ruling on Sept. 29. An immigration judge subsequently granted him a $10,000 bond on Oct. 2. According to a source close to the family, he has posted the bond and has been released.
Both federal rulings rely on a May decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals establishing that the immigration detention provision allowing individualized bond determinations governs cases like theirs. But the U.S. Supreme Court has now agreed to review that ruling.
Thursday’s federal district court ruling means both Bloomington men have now prevailed in their separate federal challenges to detention without a bond hearing. Neither ruling decides their underlying immigration cases, or whether they will ultimately be permitted to remain in the United States.
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