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PROVIDENCE — A federal judge ordered the immediate release of an undocumented New Bedford man held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a Rhode Island facility in a damning opinion issued late Tuesday.

John J. McConnell Jr., chief judge for the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, ordered the federal government to release Darwing Xitumul Morales, a 28-year-old from Guatemala whom ICE agents detained outside his North End home on Feb. 11, and later transferred to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, a quasi-public prison in Central Falls, Rhode Island. 

McConnell ordered the Executive Office for Immigration Review to hold a bond hearing for Morales within seven business days. 

 “The Court holds that Mr. Morales’ continued detention is illegal and that he is entitled to immediate release and to a bond hearing before an [Immigration Judge],” McConnell wrote in his order. 

Nicolette Rand, Morales’ U.S. citizen wife, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf on Feb. 13. Such a petition must be filed in the district where a person is physically located while in custody. McConnell ordered ICE to provide the court with 72 hours warning before transferring Morales outside of the District of Rhode Island. The order included a provision that he must be allowed to confer with Rand about whether it would be easier to pick him up at Wyatt or the ICE Boston Field Office in Burlington. It remained unclear Wednesday morning as to whether the government had released him yet. 

McConnell pulled no punches in his ruling.

“Charged with defending ICE’s actions in court, the Government no longer argues that the countless rulings in favor of noncitizen detainees are incorrect,” McConnell wrote. “Instead, the Government acknowledges, as it does here, that should courts ‘apply the reasoning’ of [multiple] past rulings, they ‘would likely reach the same result.’

“In other words, without objection from the Government, courts can continue to find ICE’s actions to be illegal and grant the noncitizen detainees’ habeas petitions,” he continued.

McConnell’s ruling was based on earlier federal court decisions, which found illegal a policy that denied a bond hearing to all who entered the country without inspection. 

The judge also cited reporting by The Light when he ordered that ICE return all property, including the keys to the black Mazda SUV Morales was driving when detained. The car remained partially blocking traffic near the intersection of Covell Street and Belleville Avenue, days after his detention. 

“The Government’s actions are unlawful and inappropriate,” he said. “Indeed, requiring Ms. Rand to travel 75 miles to collect the keys to the couple’s vehicle only serves to reward the Government’s lawless behavior. As one court so aptly put it, ‘[t]his is not what humane enforcement looks like in a humane system of government under law.”

The order further prohibited ICE from placing monitoring equipment on Morales, saying that it would amount to Morales’ continued custody.

“The Court has already ordered that ICE must immediately release Mr. Morales from custody,” McConnell wrote. “It does not follow then that ICE gets to keep Mr. Morales ‘in custody’ through the use of monitoring equipment if the agency did not have the lawful authority to detain Mr. Morales in the first place.”

Amy Romero, chief legal counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island who represented Morales, said she took on the case at the request of the court after Rand filed the petition.  

“Volunteer attorneys have now filed dozens of habeas petitions challenging the unlawful detention of individuals wrongfully detained by ICE at Wyatt, and we will continue to do so as long as this continues,” she told The Light in an emailed statement. “The mission of the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island is to ensure that skilled and dedicated lawyers will challenge the federal government whenever it acts in violation of the law, threatens democracy, or advances authoritarianism. 

“The Lawyers’ Committee for RI has brought lawsuits in federal court on behalf of Rhode Island organizations, cities, and individuals, including dozens of individuals unlawfully detained by ICE at Wyatt Detention Facility.”

A struggling family

Rand told The Light shortly after agents detained Morales that he was the home’s sole income earner as she completed her studies to become a certified nursing assistant. That left her to figure out how to care for two toddlers — one on the autism spectrum — in addition to her 67-year old mother with advanced dementia. 

Rand could not be reached for comment. 

Helena DaSilva Hughes, president of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center, was among the first to learn of the detention. She said the IAC assisted the family in the form of certificates for groceries and diapers. She also credited the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts with helping to file the habeas petition.

“The best scenario was for him to get a bond hearing,” she said in reaction to the decision. “Our goal was to get him out and working to support his family. His family needs him.”

As of Wednesday morning, Morales had a master hearing scheduled at the Chelmsford Immigration Court on March 5.

Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org.