Judge Orders ICE to Release 600+ Illegal Migrants

A federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of illegal migrants arrested in the Chicago area, including some arrested under the Department of Homeland Security's "Operation Midway Blitz," by Nov. 21 after finding their arrests could have violated a 2022 consent decree.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings sided with attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) representing detainees who said DHS violated a consent decree that limits the ability of federal agents to conduct warrantless arrests.

Cummings ordered 13 people to be released by Friday at noon, and another 615 people will be released into "alternatives-to-detention" which could include electronic monitoring by next Friday, Nov. 21, unless the government chooses to appeal or otherwise oppose their release by this Friday.

The NIJC said the 615 people were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents between June 11 and Oct. 7, 2025.

Those released on alternatives-to-detention will remain outside of a detention facility but monitored by the court while attorneys and the judge determine whether their arrests violated the pre-existing consent decree.

"This will allow a lot of people to return to their communities because they never should have been arrested in the first place," said Michelle Garcia, an attorney with the ACLU.

The judge has also ordered the Trump administration to provide additional information on all arrests that have taken place since Oct. 7, in order to review and determine whether any of those people were unlawfully arrested and halt all deportation proceedings for people who are pending release.

People detained by federal immigration agents who have prior removal orders or pose a significant risk to the public would not be eligible for release, attorneys told the I-Team.

"The judge also acknowledged if Customs and Border Patrol and ICE had merely followed federal law and our consent decree, there would be nothing for him to order," Garcia said. "There would be nothing for him to interpret. But his view of our agreement is that folks who do not have criminal histories or risk of danger to the community, who were unlawfully arrested without probable cause, should be released."

The 2022 Castañon Nava consent decree is in effect until February 2026 and covers Illinois and five other neighboring states. Last month, Judge Cummings ruled federal immigration agents had violated the agreement in its recent immigration "blitz."

As the I-Team has previously reported, the consent decree restricts federal immigration agents from conducting warrantless arrests unless they have reason to believe a person is in the country illegally and are a flight risk.

In response to the order, a spokesperson for DHS said the judge's order puts Americans at risk.

"At every turn activist judges, sanctuary politicians, and violent rioters have actively tried to prevent our law enforcement officers from arresting and removing the worst of the worst," said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Now an ACTIVIST JUDGE is putting the lives of Americans directly at risk by ordering 615 illegal aliens be released into the community."

The judge also ordered the Department of Justice to review all remaining arrests, from Oct. 7 through Wednesday, that fall under the same category of potential warrantless arrest violations, and have a list to him of those additional arrests in the next week. More arrestees could be eligible for release as the case proceeds.

Over the last month, attorneys on both sides of the case have been working to identify how many people were arrested by immigration agents in violation of that agreement.

Mark Fleming of the NIJC believes cases like these are happening daily.

"I think [our review] will show that this whole operation, for the last two months, terrorizing of our neighborhoods the brutalizing of people here has all been unlawful," Fleming said after today's ruling. "That's what it's going to show. It's going to show that all of this, all of the tactics of Mr Bovino, all of the tactics of ICE, have been unlawful in the vast majority of arrests."

Earlier this week, Fleming told the I-Team the list of people arrested potentially in violation of the consent decree has grown to more than 3,000 people.

"Our initial analysis is that it's over 3,000 arrests," Fleming previously told the I-Team. "We've started to dig into the case file that they produced to us, and the vast majority are violations. If they did not have a prior order of removal, in almost all circumstances, they've been uniformly violating the consent decree."

So far, Fleming said on Monday that ICE has produced a list of 3,800 people, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol has given a list of 1,200 people, but he stressed that there may be duplicate entries on both lists, so his team does not have a solid total figure yet. Those lists were only through October 7.

Attorneys representing the Department of Homeland Security have argued that Congress stripped federal courts of their authority to grant parole to large groups of immigrants in ICE custody.

In their filings, government attorneys argue, "Congress has vested the authority to grant parole solely with the Secretary of Homeland Security... Federal courts cannot order the Department of Homeland Security to release any aliens on parole because Congress has stripped them of that authority."

In their review of people arrested by agents potentially in violation of the consent decree, Fleming said more than 1,000 people are no longer in the U.S., meaning they may have been deported already after signing voluntary removal orders.

"A lot of these folks have never had any interaction with law enforcement before, nor been subject to detention, and so it's horrifying," Fleming explained on Monday.

Fleming continued, "What we've raised to the court is if you don't provide this interim relief, there will be no one left. At the end of this, we may find thousands of violations, but there may be no one left."