ICE Took Their Papers--and Won't Give Them Back: Immigrants are being released from detention without documents proving

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Federal law requires noncitizens to carry proof of their lawful status. “The government not returning these documents to folks is essentially forcing them to walk around without this document that the government itself says these folks are supposed to carry with them,” says Julia Decker, policy director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Recourse for these immigrants is limited. In some cases, like Isabel’s, judges have ordered the return of an immigrant’s documents, but the government hasn’t complied. (Last month, a federal judge in Minnesota found that ICE had defied nearly 100 court orders during its immigration crackdown.) Some lawyers have shown up to Whipple themselves, only to be told that there was nothing else to be returned. Some have suggested suing for damages or pursuing a class-action lawsuit.

But last week, Judge Laura Provinzino, of the Federal District Court in Minnesota, found a Trump administration lawyer in civil contempt of court for failing to return the identity documents of Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, a detained immigrant from Mexico. The judge ordered Soto Jimenez’s release in Minnesota with his property. Instead, he was released in Texas without his license, permit, or Mexican consular ID card. Provinzino imposed a $500 fine on the Justice Department attorney, Matthew Isihara, for each day that the documents weren’t returned. Isihara explained to the judge that his intention wasn’t to defy court orders. “We were doing our best and things, unfortunately, slipped—slipped through the cracks,” he said. (The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.)