Hunter
11/12/25
A Federal judge has ruled that the US Government has failed to provide due process to two individuals being detained by the US Department of Homeland Security and ordered them to provide bond hearings for them.
Iowa Capitol Dispatch reports in recent months, hundreds of people alleged to have entered the country illegally have been jailed by Homeland Security. Immigration judges, citing a new Trump administration interpretation of a longstanding federal law, have then denied those detainees hearings at which they could have argued for their release on bond while their deportation case was pending.
That has resulted in dozens of detainees suing the federal government, as well as the county jails where they’re held, in U.S. District Court, arguing their due process rights are being violated. In the vast majority of those cases, district court judges have sided with the detainees, ordering immigration judges to schedule bond hearings for the detainees.
US District Court Judge Stephen Locher of the Southern District of Iowa ruled on the two cases. One involved Maria Enriquez Reyes, who with her husband and son entered the country and claimed they were fleeing persecution by Mexican drug cartels. They completed formal applications for asylum, and when they went to a pre-scheduled appointment in Cedar Rapids September 2nd, Reyes was detained and sent to the Muscatine County Jail until a December 19th hearing. An immigration judge denied her request for a bond hearing, and she sued the county jail administrator, DHS, ICE, US Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Director Kristi Noem. In his ruling, Judge Locher noted that Reyes and her family have been in the United States for two years with no record of criminal activity. He ordered that she receive a hearing on her request for a pretrial release on bond.
Locher also ruled in favor of 26-year-old Saider Santiago Helbrum of Des Moines, who claimed he was fleeing persecution in Columbia when he arrived in the US in May of 2024. He was accused of stealing groceries at a Walmart despite having a receipt and bank records showing he paid for the groceries. The charges were dropped, but Homeland Security still issued a detention order on him. A subsequent request for a bond hearing was denied, but Judge Locher ordered the immigration court to provide Santiago Helbrum with a bond hearing.