A federal judge ordered the immediate release of a man in immigration custody last week and, seemingly for the first time in Colorado, warned that the government is increasingly conducting inadequate bond hearings for detainees.

Colorado’s federal trial court is facing a flood of “habeas corpus” petitions from those in immigration detention. The most common allegation is that the government is improperly denying bond hearings to people who are eligible by law. Colorado’s judges, like the vast majority of their peers nationwide, have agreed with that argument.

While the most common outcome is for judges to direct immigration judges, who are executive branch employees, to hold hearings to determine a person’s suitability for release, judges have occasionally ordered the immediate release of detainees instead.

In an April 1 order, U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martínez ordered the release of Gurjant Singh, whose circumstances mirrored those of numerous other habeas petitioners to date. However, Martínez took the unusual step of agreeing with Singh that any bond hearing was “unlikely to be a fair one.”

“He asserts a long list of reasons why a bond hearing is unlikely to be a fair proceeding,” wrote Martínez, a Barack Obama appointee. “The Court shares many of these same concerns, not the least of which is his averment that IJs ‘often cite little or no reasoning in determining that noncitizens are a flight-risk.'”

Martínez cited to another recent case assigned to him, in which an immigration judge’s decision to deny bond encompassed three sentences and did not refer to evidence or specific details.

“Based on the observations of fellow judges across the country, the Court is far from convinced this was an isolated incident. To the contrary, the mounting evidence that bond determination hearings conducted in Immigration Court,” he continued, “have preordained outcomes has become impossible to ignore.”

Martínez’s decision to proactively order Singh’s release came one day before a different federal judge in Colorado released another detainee whose bond hearing violated court orders.

On April 2, U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter found that an unnamed immigration judge disobeyed his orders to conduct a bond hearing at which the government would need to prove a detainee was a likely flight risk or a danger to the community. Neureiter wrote that the immigration judge had apparently not even read his orders.

The immigration judge “and the counsel for the United States appeared to be operating under the misapprehension that orders from this Court,” he wrote, “were advisory or mere recommendations as opposed to enforceable and binding.”

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice and is responsible for immigration courts, did not respond to questions from Colorado Politics regarding Martínez’s order and the instructions given to immigration judges for conducting bond hearings.

Singh’s attorney also did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado, which litigates habeas petitions on behalf of the government, declined to comment.

Multiple immigration attorneys told Colorado Politics that the government is increasingly failing to hold meaningful bond hearings in immigration proceedings, even after a judge has laid out specific requirements for doing so.

“Even with these stringent guidelines, noncitizens are being denied bond. As a result, there has been an uptick in people filing motions to enforce to ensure that the immigration courts are providing constitutionally adequate bond hearings,” said attorney Laura Lunn. “Instead of engaging with the resulting litigation carousel that keeps going around and around, Judge Martínez found that there was sufficient justification for ordering the petitioner’s immediate release.”

Martínez previously put the government on notice that he would change his approach if he encountered resistance.

In a Feb. 24 order, Martínez declined to order a petitioner’s release outright, even as he acknowledged the government has “failed to comply with numerous federal court orders across the country.” Martínez indicated that he had not personally observed disobedience from the government yet.

“Should it fail to fully and timely comply with this Court’s orders,” he continued, “the Government is on clear notice that the Court will not hesitate to order the immediate release of noncitizens in future, appropriate cases.”

Martínez’s decision in Singh’s case cited a recent order from U.S. District Court Judge Christine P. O’Hearn of New Jersey, who cataloged other instances across the country in which immigration judges provided little to no reasoning when denying bond.

“These developments, among others, raise a serious question as to whether the constitutional guarantee of an impartial decisionmaker is being honored in any case brought before an IJ,” she wrote.

The case is Singh v. Valdez et al.