CHICAGO (NewsNation) — Nearly 450 detained migrants who have been arrested in Chicago are scheduled to be released from federal custody Friday after a judge found their arrests to violate a consent decree related to warrantless arrests.
Judge Jeffrey Cummings found 446 migrants who were arrested between June and October are eligible to be released on a $1,500 bond. The detained migrants were part of a larger list of 615 immigrants who were arrested by federal immigration officers over the past five months in Chicago.
The 2022 consent decree order requires federal agents to either have a judicial warrant or probable cause that the person represents a flight risk before taking them into custody.
Cummings ruled last week that those migrants be released unless they posed a serious security risk or had previous orders to leave the United States. The Trump administration appealed Cummings’ decision, and on Tuesday, the federal judge denied the government’s request to block or delay the releases while the decision was appealed.
Cummings found 57 migrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers represent a high public safety risk and will remain in federal custody. Of the list of 615 detained immigrants whose arrests are being reviewed, 75 have already been deported and 33 have previously been released, according to court documents.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is currently weighing the government’s appeal of Cummings’ ruling to release hundreds of migrants.
Attorneys representing the migrants say their clients represent a growing number of immigrants whose arrests violate a 2022 Castañon Nava settlement that was originally set to expire in May. That order prevents federal officers and agents from making arrests without a prior warrant or proof that a person represents a flight risk.
NewsNation affiliate WGN News reported that since mid-June, 3,368 people have been arrested by federal agents and officers in the greater Chicago area. Of those arrests, more than 1,800 migrants have been detained by ICE, while another 1,000 have likely been deported.
Cummings gave the government a Wednesday deadline to provide a list of more than 3,000 migrants who have been detained in the Chicago area. In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing the agency’s Risk Classification Assessment, which assigns a risk level for public safety and flight risks to those being held in federal custody. The score takes into consideration the person’s criminal history, immigration history and links to the community where they are living.
However, Cummings extended the consent decree until February 2026 in a ruling he handed down in October. Attorneys representing the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center claim that the majority of the arrests made by federal agents during the two-month federal immigration enforcement operation that recently wrapped up violate the 2022 consent decree.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security identified 16 people on the list of more than 600 migrants who represent a “high” public safety risk. However, DHS officials shifted all but one of those people to be a low-to-medium security risk. Criminal charges lodged against the migrants who were arrested ranged from driving under the influence of alcohol to assault with a gun, according to the court filing.
Mark Fleming, a National Immigrant Justice Center attorney representing clients who filed a lawsuit over the arrests, said last week that Cummings’ decision is proof that the actions of federal immigration officers and agents working in Chicago in recent months have been illegal.
“This whole operation, for the last two months, the terrorizing of our neighborhoods, the brutalizing of people here, has all been unlawful,” Fleming said. “(The ruling) is going to show that all of this, all of the tactics of (Border Patrol Commander) Mr. (Gregory) Bovino, all of the tactics of ICE have been unlawful in the vast, vast majority of arrests.”