BURLINGTON — A Burlington man detained last week on his way to work by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials was released by a federal judge Thursday, pending a bond hearing in immigration court.
Federal Judge William K. Sessions III ordered the immediate release of Jaime Eliceo Castro Guaman, 40.
Castro Guaman had been held at Northwest State Correctional Facility for nine days after being detained March 10, the day before an immigration raid on a South Burlington house that drew hundreds of protesters.
Sessions chose to immediately release Castro Guaman, saying he posed no risk to the community and that his detention may have violated his constitutional rights.
“Other than a mistake by ICE, he would not have been detained,” Sessions said. “This is a person who was just living his daily life.”
Sessions ordered that an immigration court hold a bond hearing for Castro Guaman, where they could set conditions that govern his ability to continue living in the community, such as requiring him to attend regular ICE check-ins.
Castro Guaman and his coworker were both detained after ICE agents stopped their car, his lawyer said. His coworker was driving.
In court, his lawyer, Emma Matters of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, said that ICE agents didn’t give Castro Guaman any reason for detaining him until they’d already taken him to their field office in St. Albans, where they told him that they’d been looking for someone else. They chose to hold him even though he was not the person they’d been seeking.
His lawyer wrote in a court filing that she believed “the reason given for the traffic stop, after the fact, was a pretext for unlawful racial profiling.”
During the hearing, the government’s attorney, Benjamin Weathers-Lowin, said that ICE officers had been surveilling a house in Burlington as part of a removal operation.The attorney said the officers had followed Castro Guaman and his coworker after they left the house and drove away. After following the men’s car for two miles, ICE officers pulled them over, the attorney said.
Weathers-Lowin said an ICE records check then showed that Castro Guaman had ongoing removal proceedings, and that he had not notified DHS when he moved to Vermont from Massachusetts in 2022. Nonetheless, he said that Castro Guaman had attended all of the required court dates in his immigration case.
Castro Guaman applied for asylum after he entered the U.S. in 2022, he said through an interpreter in court. He fled Ecuador after receiving threats, according to his lawyer, and lived in Massachusetts before moving to Vermont in 2024, where some of his siblings live. Three of his siblings were outside the courthouse during his hearing.
The government argued that Castro Guaman should remain detained until he could appear for a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
Sessions said that he felt the decision to release Castro Guaman would allow the immigration court to remain involved in setting conditions for Castro Guaman’s release, while also protecting Castro Guaman’s rights.
The judge’s ruling Thursday was a contrast to a hearing earlier in the week in which Sessions declined to release a man who was detained by ICE. In that case, the judge cited concerns about potential outstanding warrants for his arrest. That man was released following an immigration bond hearing Thursday.
Castro Guaman’s case is one example of the ICE detentions happening across the state that often go under the radar, said Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, a group that advocates for immigrant rights in Vermont.
The mood outside the courthouse after Castro Guaman’s release was celebratory as he embraced siblings in front of a crowd of about 40 cheering supporters.
“It’s indescribable,” he said through an interpreter. “There’s nothing like being free.”
“The truth is you do feel a little frustrated, because I’ve never gotten in any trouble. Being a prisoner, it weighed on me.”
He also said he felt the presence of supporters who gathered in the cold outside the court had contributed to his release.
“I hope that if what happens to me happens to anyone else, we all come out and show the same support,” he told the crowd through an interpreter.
Emma Matters, his attorney, said that although she wishes they did not have to repeat their arguments in front of an immigration court, she was thrilled Castro Guaman was released.
Castro Guaman’s coworker is still in ICE custody, according to the ICE Detainee Locator. According to Vermont Department of Corrections data, he is currently held at Northwest State Correctional Facility.
