Judge orders release of Billings father and 9-year-old daughter from immigration custody in Havre

A federal district court judge late Wednesday afternoon ordered the federal government to release a Billings father and his 9-year-old daughter from immigration custody in Havre, where they have been detained since Aug. 11. The judge’s order requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection to release the pair by 4:45 p.m. Thursday. 

On Aug. 11, according to court documents, Border Patrol agents pulled over Adrián Espinoza De La Cruz while he was driving in Billings and arrested him and his daughter, who was also in the car. Border Patrol agents then transported the pair 250 miles north to a Border Patrol facility in Havre, where they have since remained detained, according to court documents.  

Helena-based Upper Seven Law, the firm representing De La Cruz and his daughter, filed a petition for their release in federal district court Tuesday alleging that federal agents unlawfully arrested the pair without a warrant and did not conduct required individualized flight risk assessments before detaining them. Upper Seven lawyers argued that neither De La Cruz nor his daughter posed a danger to their community or posed a flight risk. They described the pair’s continued detention as unconstitutional and asked the court to immediately release them from custody.  

“[Given] their lack of dangerousness, and their lack of flight risk, no legitimate consideration justifies their detention, rendering their detention punitive and unconstitutional,” according to the petition filed by Upper Seven. 

Responding to the petition on Wednesday, attorneys representing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) alleged that De La Cruz and his daughter are citizens of Mexico living in the U.S. without legal status. They did not dispute that the pair were arrested without a warrant, but claimed that a warrant was issued after they arrived in Havre. The government’s lawyers argued that the father and daughter’s detention was authorized and asked the court to dismiss Upper Seven Law’s petition. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana declined to offer comment on ongoing litigation. 

In a ruling issued late Wednesday afternoon, Chief United States District Court Judge Brian Morris found the federal government’s arrest and detainment of De La Cruz and his daughter was unlawful and ordered their release “to remedy the constitutional and statutory violations committed by the Government against [them].”

“The Court finds this case particularly disturbing considering the Government’s lack of regard for the rights of a father and minor child,” Morris wrote. 

Molly Danahy, Upper Seven Law’s litigation director, wrote in an emailed statement to Montana Free Press Thursday that the court’s decision to release De La Cruz and his daughter is “right, just and lawful.”

“Courts around the country have agreed that CBP cannot simply snatch people like Adrián and his daughter off the streets,” she wrote. “As long as CBP and ICE continue their unlawful activities in Montana, we will persist in seeking justice for the wrongfully detained.”

De La Cruz and his daughter have joined a class action lawsuit, filed by Upper Seven on Aug. 3, in which a group of people held in detention by the federal government on civil immigration charges allege they were unlawfully detained. As of Monday, approximately 30 plaintiffs had joined the class, according to Upper Seven. 

Judge Morris has scheduled a hearing for the class action case on Sept. 4 in Helena.