Colorado’s chief federal judge took the extraordinary step of directing the government on Tuesday to do everything it can to return a man it deported in violation of his order.

At the same time, Colorado’s chief magistrate judge has set a hearing for next month to explore multiple instances in which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security “simply ignored the law and detained an individual in violation of the law.”

For nearly a year, Colorado’s U.S. District Court has faced 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 largely agreed with that argument, and the Denver-based federal appeals court handed down a binding interpretation of the law in June confirming that view.

Recently, trial judges in Colorado have focused on failures by immigration judges, who are executive branch employees, to provide bond hearings that comply with court orders. As recently as Friday, Senior Judge William J. Martínez released a petitioner directly after Immigration Judge Bobbie C. Masters wrote a single word — “Danger” — to justify a petitioner’s detention without further reasoning.

However, the judges’ concerns have expanded to a broader range of problematic conduct.

Earlier this year, Judge Nina Y. Wang learned that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had deported a habeas petitioner to Nigeria in spite of her order blocking his removal until she could adjudicate his petition. In a June 1 order, she wrote that ICE “unequivocally violated” her directive, but she declined to make the government return the man to the United States due to the specific circumstances of his case.

In a follow-up order on July 24, Wang determined she could not require the government to pay the petitioner’s attorneys’ fees as a sanction, adding that she “remains troubled by Respondents’ clear violation of the Court’s order.”

However, one month later, Chief Judge Daniel D. Domenico went further than Wang after the government violated his own order.

‘Greatly regret the error’

Marco Uriel Rodriguez Hernandez’s original habeas petition culminated in a judge’s finding in May that the government was unlawfully denying him a bond hearing. In early August, Rodriguez Hernandez filed another habeas case, arguing an immigration judge’s subsequent denial of bond was constitutionally problematic.

On Aug. 6, Rodriguez Hernandez’s lawyer learned that ICE had transferred him out of the privately run Aurora detention center to an unknown location. Attorney Skylar M. Larson contacted ICE to alert the agency to the new habeas case, but it responded that there were “no impediments to removal.”

Larson then sought a temporary restraining order from Domenico, which he granted on Aug. 7 to bar ICE from deporting Rodriguez Hernandez. Larson quickly emailed the order to Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth E. Puskar. At the time, Rodriguez Hernandez was detained in Texas.

The following evening, Rodriguez Hernandez called Larson to say that ICE had deported him that morning and he was not allowed to contact Larson beforehand.

Domenico’s order “was entered precisely to prevent removal before the Court could adjudicate the pending federal proceeding. Based on Rodriguez Hernandez’s report, the event the Court restrained occurred the following morning, after Respondents’ counsel had actual notice of the Order,” Larson wrote to Domenico. “Respondents’ subsequent removal destroyed the status quo the Court affirmatively preserved.”

She cited a U.S. Supreme Court order from April 2025, after the government erroneously deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an El Salvador prison. The court concluded a trial judge was within her rights to require the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release.

Consequently, Larson asked that Domenico, among other things, require the government to “take all available steps within their lawful authority to facilitate his return to the United States.”

Puskar, responding for the government, argued that Domenico did not have the authority in the first instance to block Rodriguez Hernandez’s removal. Still, she wrote that the government defendants “greatly regret the error” in deporting Rodriguez Hernandez mistakenly.

“Respondents seek to comply with Court orders. Respondents did not intend to violate this Court’s order, and the error was inadvertent,” Puskar wrote. “The removal was conducted by officials in Texas who were not aware of this Court’s order.”

On Aug. 25, Domenico granted Larson’s request for the government to retrieve Rodriguez Hernandez from Mexico.

“The respondents removed the petitioner from the United States before his order of removal had become final and in violation of this Court’s temporary restraining order enjoining his removal,” wrote Domenico, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Abrego Garcia’s case.

The government “must take all available steps within its lawful authority to facilitate the petitioner’s return to the United States as soon as possible,” he continued and must provide an update within one week.

Larson did not return an email requesting comment, and a spokesperson for Colorado’s U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Further inquiry into violations

Colorado Politics could not locate another instance of a federal judge in Colorado ordering the government to return a habeas petitioner wrongly deported. Domenico’s decision comes amid his pending nomination by President Donald Trump to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Both of Colorado’s Democratic senators have said they will not vote to confirm him, citing his earlier views on immigration detention that aligned with the Trump administration’s.

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions from Colorado Politics about how they will effectuate Domenico’s order.

Separately, Chief Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak is moving to explore the government’s conduct in other areas.

In a pair of Aug. 20 orders in different habeas cases, Varholak ordered the petitioners’ release after concluding they were wrongfully detained. In one instance, ICE agents violated an injunction by Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson, which required agents in Colorado to abide by the probable cause requirements in federal law for arresting someone without a warrant.

“This case presents one in a series of cases in which DHS appears to have simply ignored the law and detained an individual in violation of the law. The United States has not — and apparently cannot — defend that decision,” Varholak wrote, referring to the now-standard practice of Colorado’s U.S. Attorney’s Office to not argue in opposition to wrongful detention claims.

Varholak set a hearing for Sept. 10, where “Defendants shall be prepared to address their apparent repeated violation of the law.”

Finally, the government has until Friday to explain to another judge, Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter, why he should not sanction ICE for re-detaining a petitioner who an immigration judge found suitable for release just four days earlier. The government requested time to compile “all the relevant information” that Neureiter requested.