A federal judge in New York City has ordered the immediate release of a prominent immigration activist, saying his detention was "unnecessarily cruel."
Applause broke out in a packed Manhattan courtroom Monday after Judge Katherine Forrest announced that Ravi Ragbir must be released.
Ragbir, a Trinidadian citizen, was once a legal permanent resident of the United States, but lost his status after serving time for a wire fraud conviction incurred 18 years ago. Since 2006, he has been fighting a deportation order, and was detained on January 11 during a regular check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Amy Gottlieb, Ragbir's wife and an immigrant rights activist and attorney, said she cried when the judge read her decision.
"It's been a really hard couple of weeks and I've been really disheartened and disillusioned," she told reporters. "And it really restored my faith a little bit in our systems."
Judge Forrest read aloud a written ruling saying that Ragbir and those like him across the country ought to have "the freedom to say goodbye" when they are not a threat to flee or a danger to the community. She also compared his treatment to that of "regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work. And sent away.
"We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it."
Lawyers for Ragbir contended their client was targeted by a biased government official upset after witnessing Ragbir's organization, New Sanctuary Coalition, accompanying him and other immigrants to their check-ins, plus Ragbir himself protesting outside the ICE office. They argued that this ICE official did not have the authority to revoke both Ragbir's order of supervision and his latest stay of deportation, issued last November.
A government lawyer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Waterman, argued that the ICE official did have the power to detain Ragbir. As for any potential bias, he said, "it's just pure speculation at this point."
He said the fact that the government had obtained a travel document for Ragbir to return to Trinidad constituted a change of circumstances prior to his January check-in. Waterman also stated that the government did not violate Ragbir's due process rights because immigrants with deportation orders, even when released to their community under supervision, "are on notice they can be picked up at any time."
Later on Monday, ICE released a statement saying it's "concerned with the tone of the district court’s decision, which equates the difficult work ICE professionals do every day to enforce our immigration laws with 'treatment we associate with regimes we revile as unjust,' and is actively exploring its appellate options."
It also repeat its earlier statement that Ragbir was sentenced to 30 months incarceration after his conviction for wire fraud, and was ordered to pay $350,000. After the government found him deportable in 2006, ICE said he exhausted numerous appeals through the immigration courts.
The government immediately sought to stay Judge Forrest's order that Ragbir be released from detention upstate, but she declined to do so and said he must be released. A spokesman who works with Ragbir's New Sanctuary Coalition, Will Coley, said Ragbir left detention on Monday night and went to visit the Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, which shelters undocumented immigrants.
"Obviously we will be prepared for any appeal and to continue fighting for his right to be free and to remain here in the US," said Alina Das, one of Ragbir's attorneys.
Meanwhile, Das said a judge in New Jersey is considering a separate legal challenge seeking to vacate Ragbir's old criminal conviction for wire fraud. He cannot be deported in the interim.
More immediately, Gottlieb will be the guest of New York Congresswoman Nydia Velásquez at President Trump's State of the Union Speech on Tuesday. Velásquez said Ragbir will now join them on the trip to D.C.
"I'm heartened the Judge made the correct and humane decision today in ordering ICE to release Ravi from detainment," Velásquez said in a statement. "I know much still remains ahead in Ravi's ongoing fight to stay in this country, but this is an important milestone."
This story has been updated to include a statement from ICE and new developments.