A federal choose has ordered an unlawful alien accused of stabbing and throwing a trash can at her coworker in Massachusetts to be launched, citing how her husband had a latest “acute medical episode,” which the feds declare was a pretend seizure.
U.S. District Choose Stacey D. Neuman, who sits on the federal courtroom in Maine, decided Ecuadoran nationwide Juliana Milena Ojeda-Montoya, on the heart of final week’s viral ICE arrest in Fitchburg, is entitled to due course of and needs to be launched again to her household.
“Liberty is the norm and detention without trial is the ‘carefully limited exception,’” Neuman wrote in a courtroom submitting on Monday. “Her current detention without an opportunity to be heard violates her rights to due process.”
Ojeda-Montoya’s arrest final Thursday shortly turned a nationwide headline as her husband had an obvious seizure amid a scuffle with ICE brokers inside a automobile in Fitchburg. The feds have accused the husband of faking the medical episode to intervene with the apprehension.
The couple’s child daughter was additionally within the automobile on the time.
Federal immigration brokers took Ojeda-Montoya to Cumberland County Jail in Maine, the place she has been detained since.
Although Neuman described the allegations of Ojeda-Montoya’s felony case as “serious,” the choose dominated that it doesn’t in itself “implicate the Laken Riley Act,” a federal legislation that mandates detention for noncitizens who’ve been charged with, convicted of, or admit to committing sure enumerated felony acts.
“The Leominster District Court already determined that she is entitled to release on her own recognizance,” Neuman wrote. “Moreover, she has a young daughter at home whom she needs to breastfeed and a husband who recently suffered an acute medical episode, seemingly as a result of ICE agents’ actions.”
“Those factors alone weigh in favor of a finding of extraordinary circumstances,” the choose added in her order to launch Ojeda-Montoya.
Neuman has ordered the protection and prosecutors to file briefs on the applicability of the Laken Riley Act within the case by Friday.
As video from the scene went viral, Fitchburg Mayor Sam Squailia known as for “advance notice” from ICE earlier than they conduct operations in her metropolis and thanked residents for recording federal brokers trying to detain Ojeda-Montoya.
“Recording these interactions ensures our community’s stories are told,” Squailia acknowledged in a Fb submit final Friday, “and it allows the public to see what occurs when federal agents operate in our city.”
“These unannounced federal actions place our local officers in an impossible situation,” the mayor added. “When federal agents report they are ‘in danger,’ our officers are obligated to respond.”
Ojeda-Montoya entered the nation in February 2023, admitting that she illegally crossed the border in Arizona. In July 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies issued the girl a office authorization, which is slated to run out in 2029.
Ojeda-Montoya was charged with assault and battery with a harmful weapon and assault with a harmful weapon after she allegedly reduce her Burger King coworker with scissors and threw a trash can on the sufferer.
The Division of Homeland Safety responded to the backlash, accusing Ojeda-Montoya’s husband of “FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice.”
“The target of this operation … is the WORST OF THE WORST,” the division acknowledged in a social media submit.
Congressional Democrats on the Home Homeland Safety Committee reacted to the incident, stating, “DHS will lie. They always do. BUT LOOK WITH YOUR EYES!! Is this right? the WORST OF THE WORST?? Absolutely not. And shame on anyone who says otherwise.”
DHS didn’t instantly reply to a Herald request for touch upon Tuesday.
