QuickTake:

The 20-year-old man spent about three weeks in an ICE facility in Tacoma before a Washington judge ordered his release pending a future court hearing. Had his petition been filed before he crossed the state line from Oregon, he may have been freed the day of his arrest.

This story has been updated with comment from a federal Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.

A federal judge in Washington on Friday, Aug. 14, ordered an immigration court hearing and the immediate release of a Cottage Grove man detained since his July 20 arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Victoriano Carrillo-Pablo, 20, was arrested by ICE while facing criminal charges. A petition seeking his release filed the day of his arrest alleged a violation of due process protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Carrillo-Pablo has pleaded not guilty to first-degree sodomy and two counts of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, all felonies. A Lane County Circuit Court judge after a March hearing granted his release from jail on a $50,000 security bond with a required payment of 10%, or $5,000.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, in his Friday order, stated a hearing must be held “with adequate notice” in immigration court to “determine whether detention is appropriate” for Carrillo-Pablo.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Monday said Carrillo-Pablo illegally entered the U.S. in 2021 from Guatemala “and was RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration,” going on to note the Cottage Grove man’s pending criminal charges.

“Rather than allow ICE to continue detaining him, the judge ordered that he be released and prohibited ICE from re-detaining him until after an immigration court hearing is held,” the DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

Martinez’s order pointed to Lane County releasing Carrillo-Pablo on bond, stating that the circuit court “is certainly most familiar with the circumstances of Petitioner’s criminal case.” 

“The Government provides no showing of changes in circumstances to indicate a risk of flight or dangerousness or otherwise not already evaluated by the Oregon court or in the four months between his release from criminal custody and ICE’s arrest and detention,” Martinez wrote in his Friday order.

“Nor does the Government provide why, after learning of Petitioner’s charges in June 2026, his arrest did not occur for over a month and why it occurred with little to no due process,” Martinez wrote, ordering the immediate release of Carrillo-Pablo.

ICE officers July 20 transported Carrillo-Pablo into Washington at 9:47 a.m. July 20, less than two hours before the filing of a petition in Oregon court arguing for his release.

But because Carrillo-Pablo had crossed into Washington, Chief U.S. District Judge Michael McShane in a Eugene courtroom said he lacked jurisdiction to issue any orders.

“It is a race to the border to get these folks into Washington before a petition can be filed here,” McShane said in a July 23, hearing.

The jurisdiction matters because Oregon federal judges, in response to detention challenges known as habeas petitions, routinely issue orders to “protect the status quo” pending a hearing on the petitions.

The Oregon judicial orders say judges will consider concerns if “good cause” exists not to release a detainee. But immigration authorities — upon receiving orders from a judge — have been releasing detainees the same day they have been picked up, as Oregon has no overnight ICE detention facilities.

Stephen Manning, executive director of the Portland-based Innovation Law Lab, a legal advocacy group, in a statement last month to Lookout Eugene-Springfield said “[r]apidly moving Oregonians out of state is a deliberate tactic by ICE to take away due process rights and separate attorneys from their clients.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Lookout Eugene-Springfield last month that when someone is “transferred to ICE custody, the agency makes a custody determination based on bed space and ensures their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United States.”