A federal judge in Nevada has sharply criticized the Trump administration for imposing excessively harsh and “coercive” conditions on the release of an immigrant who suffered torture in his home country and is now seeking asylum.

The judge’s ruling, detailed in a three-page order, marks the latest judicial challenge to the new detention policies introduced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These policies, which have been in effect since last summer, have faced widespread rejection from hundreds of district court judges, who oppose ICE’s attempts to indefinitely detain immigrants through reclassification.

In this particular case, Kevin Eliel Aguirre Solis, the petitioner, had already persuaded U.S. District Judge Richard Franklin Boulware II, appointed by Barack Obama, to order his “immediate release from custody” due to violations of his due process rights by the government.

Despite Aguirre Solis’s release, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been found by the court to have engaged in inappropriate conduct, prompting the latest stringent ruling.

Aguirre Solis entered the United States in 2020, escaping political persecution and torture at the hands of Nicaraguan authorities. His actions, which included participating in peaceful protests against the government’s proposed changes to the national pension system, were highlighted in an earlier court order.

While the petitioner lived in the United States, he followed the law, the court explained – aside from a parking ticket and a speeding ticket. But then a third interaction with law enforcement dovetailed with the new ICE policy of “mandatory detention.”

“In June of 2025, the North Las Vegas police pulled Petitioner over while he was driving,” the court explains. “He was accused of driving under the influence because he was shaking and sweating, a reaction that is triggered whenever he sees police due to his prior torture by Nicaraguan authorities. He was charged with four misdemeanors for driving under the influence, headlamps not illuminated, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, and failure to provide proof of insurance.”

And though he posted bond on the charges, Aguirre Solis was not released from custody, the judge said, because “ICE knowingly and unlawfully commenced expedited removal proceedings.”

Attorneys for the petitioner filed a petition for the writ of habeas corpus in January – which Boulware quickly granted.

In his order explaining the release decision, the judge notes the case “is one of a rapidly growing number before this Court.” And, in a footnote, further explains: “This Court has already granted habeas petitioners relief—both preliminary and on the merits—in well over sixty similar challenges and counting.”

In that February order, the court offered a severe account of the government’s efforts to rewrite the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and how those efforts were applied to Aguirre Solis.

“He was erroneously placed in expedited removal proceedings by Respondents despite their acknowledgement that he has been present in the country since 2020, and thus cannot, by statute, be deprived of the procedural protections of standard removal proceedings,” the release order reads. “The Court thus grants the Petition and orders Respondents to immediately release him from detention on his own recognizance.”

The release order angrily recalls facts of the petitioner’s detention:

While in ICE custody, he was coerced to sign a document he could not understand, deprived of his right to speak to his counsel, placed in inhumane conditions, and nearly illegally removed from the U.S. by ICE agents despite, as Respondents concede, ICE having no authority to remove him. This caused him severe mental distress as a survivor of persecution and torture by Nicaraguan authorities who struggles with trauma related mental health symptoms. He has been subjected to nearly eight months of arbitrary detention while Respondents have never articulated— either in immigration court proceedings or in this Court—any individualized justification to continue to detain him.

But after the government was forced to release Aguirre Solis, ICE officials have continued to insist on strict control over his movements, the petitioner’s attorneys explained in a motion to reopen the case.

“Despite the Court’s Order requiring Petitioner’s release on personal recognizance, ICE and DHS unilaterally imposed release conditions that constitute a significant constraint on Petitioner’s liberty, including ‘enrollment and successful participation in an Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program as designated by the U.S.’; 24/7 electronic surveillance with an ankle monitor, a curfew, and appearances at ICE offices every two weeks,” the order notes. “ICE asserts authority to unilaterally arrest and re-detain Petitioner, without a pre-deprivation hearing, if he violates any of these restrictive conditions.”

In response to that motion filed earlier this month, the court set an expedited briefing schedule and the Department of Justice has been doubly mum, Boulware explains. First, the government “filed no opposition” and second, the DOJ “has thus far not contested the factual assertions of Petitioner which the Court adopts here.”

In other words, the Trump administration’s lack of attention to the case have made the court’s decisions something of an easy call.

To that end, Boulware slammed ICE and DHS for their continued efforts to unconstitutionally harass Aguirre Solis.

“Disturbingly, this Court’s Order apparently did not deter ICE from continuing to egregiously violate Petitioner’s rights, despite never asserting a legitimate interest in depriving him of his liberty,” the judge lectures.

From the latest order, at length:

The Court now clarifies that personal recognizance means release without conditions during the pendency of his removal proceedings, other than that Petitioner is required to appear for any future hearings scheduled in those proceedings. The Court further finds these release conditions, coupled with the threat of nonjudicial rearrest and re-detention by ICE, which Federal Respondents unilaterally imposed despite never presenting evidence or argument that Petitioner was a flight risk or dangerous, violate this Court’s Order, and constitute significant constraints on Petitioner’s liberty.

“The government has no constitutionally recognized justification for these conditions—and the circumstances here suggest ICE is wielding these coercive conditions to terrorize Petitioner into abdicating his rights,” Boulware goes on.

The order vacates all the current release conditions on Aguirre Solis, enjoins ICE from imposing any release conditions without the judge’s express consent, mandates the removal of the petitioner’s ankle monitor, and directs the filing of a joint status report by March 27.