Omaha, NE — Yet another federal civil rights lawsuit was filed Monday seeking the release of a Glenn Valley Foods worker who was among 76 undocumented immigrants detained in a June 10th Omaha raid.
Sabina Carmona-Lorenzo was detained in a June 10 Omaha immigration raid and remains in a North Platte jail. (Courtesy of American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska)
The action was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska on behalf of Sabina Carmona-Lorenzo, whom the ACLU said was in the U.S. more than 25 years. She and her husband have five children, three of whom are minors. One is in college and the other in the U.S. military, the ACLU said.
Similar to at least three other recent lawsuits, including one filed by the ACLU for another woman, the latest argues that Carmona-Lorenzo’s continued detention extends beyond legal authority and violates her right to due process.
An Omaha-based immigration judge on July 15 granted that Carmona-Lorenzo be released upon posting a bond, but the federal government blocked the bond by invoking an “automatic stay.” Bond would have freed her to be with her family while her legal team built a case for why she should not be deported.
The government acted after a leaked July 8 memo from the Trump administration offered new guidance that immigrant advocates say made nearly all who entered the country without authorization ineligible for bond while they battle deportation proceedings.
Previously, undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. generally were allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge. But the memo said the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice had revisited the government’s legal position on detention and release and determined based on a different section of immigration law that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.”
In rare exceptions, an undocumented immigrant may be released on parole, but that decision will be up to an immigration officer, not a judge, ICE’s acting director told agents, according to the Washington Post, which reported the memo.
The new guidance is based on a section of immigration law that says unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrest, but historically that applied to those who recently crossed the border and not longtime U.S. residents.
Last week, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Joseph Bataillon ordered that two other women detained in the Omaha raid be released “immediately” after they re-posted bond, saying the government was unlawfully detaining the women, both from Mexico.
In those cases, both Yanier Garcia Jimenez and Floribertha Mayo Anicasio also had been granted release on bond by an immigration judge, yet for weeks continued to be detained under an automatic stay appeal by the feds.
A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in Bataillon’s courtroom for the other worker represented by ACLU, Maria Reynosa Jacinto. All four women were jailed in the Lincoln County Detention Center North Platte, hours from their Omaha families, along with numerous others from the Glenn Valley raid.
According to the ACLU, “These back-to-back cases highlight the urgent need for immigration authorities to comply with constitutional requirements and respect immigration court judges’ bond determinations.”
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