A federal judge in Minnesota on Thursday ordered the release of a Liberian man four days after heavily armed immigration agents broke into his home using a battering ram and arrested him.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan said in his ruling that the agents violated Garrison Gibson's Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.
"To arrest him, Respondents forcibly entered Garrison G.'s home without his consent and without a judicial warrant," he said.
The Department of Homeland Security has been ramping up immigration arrests in Minnesota in what the department has called its largest enforcement operation. DHS says its officers have arrested more than 2,500 people since Nov. 29.
Marc Prokosch, Gibson's attorney, said he was "thrilled" by the judge's order. He had filed a habeas corpus petition, used by courts to determine if an imprisonment is legal, and called the arrest a "blatant constitutional violation" since the agents did not have a proper warrant.
Gibson's wife was inside their Minneapolis home with the couple's 9-year-old child during the raid. Prokosch said she was deeply shaken by the arrest.
Gibson, 37, was being held at an immigration detention center in Albert Lea after being held at a large camp on the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas, according to ICE's detainee locator.
DHS did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment on the order and has not responded to a prior email with follow-up questions about Gibson's case.
Gibson, who fled the Liberian civil war as a child, had been ordered removed from the U.S., apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed by the courts. He had remained in the country legally under what's known as an order of supervision, with the requirement that he meet regularly with immigration authorities.
Only days before his arrest, Gibson had checked in with immigration authorities at regional immigration offices — the same building where agents have been staging enforcement raids in recent weeks.
Bryan said in his Thursday order that he agrees with Gibson's assertions that since he had already been released on an order of supervision, officials "violated applicable regulations" by not giving him enough notice that it had been revoked and the reasoning, as well as not providing him an interview right after he was detained.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, had said that Gibson has "a lengthy rap sheet (that) includes robbery, drug possession with intent to sell, possession of a deadly weapon, malicious destruction and theft." She did not indicate if those were arrests, charges or convictions.
Court records indicate Gibson's legal history shows only the one felony in 2008, along with a few traffic violations, minor drug arrests and an arrest for riding public transportation without paying the fare.
The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement campaign — has been wracked by fear and anger in the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good, who was shot Jan. 7 during a confrontation with agents. On Wednesday, a man was shot and wounded by an immigration officer who had been attacked with a shovel and broom handle.
