Federal judge grants San Jose tattoo artist reprieve in fight against ICE
A San Jose community organizer and tattoo artist born in Mexico and facing immigration detention after a pending felony vandalism charge won a reprieve Thursday evening when a federal judge barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from taking him into custody before he has a hearing.
U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin’s approval of a preliminary injunction was a small but important victory for Guillermo Medina Reyes, 31, said his lawyer Victoria Sun, attorney and co-director at Pangea Legal Services, which provides legal counsel for immigrants.
“This ruling is a critical step but it is not the end,” said Sun. “The court’s decision affirms that collective action can win real protection, but it does not change the fact that the legal system is not designed to serve our people. Courts may offer temporary relief, but they cannot deliver the lasting justice and safety our communities deserve. Guillermo should never have been targeted in the first place — and we should not have to fight this hard to keep our loved ones free.”
The attorney representing ICE declined a request for comment by this news organization.
The decision, filed on a public-access database for electronic court records, came after the extension of a temporary restraining order that saved Reyes from detention during a mandatory irregular check-in at a San Jose ICE center on July 1.
It means ICE must stop its pursuit to detain Reyes while he seeks a hearing of his case. However, the judge’s order did not require the agency to remove the GPS ankle monitor it placed on Reyes two weeks ago.
Without the ruling, this protection would have ended at 5 p.m. Thursday, with a high likelihood of Reyes’ detention immediately thereafter.
On the same day of Reyes’ July 15 hearing, ICE announced a directive banning bond hearings for people who have entered the country illegally. Reyes was brought to the U.S. from his native Mexico when he was 6 years old.
After completing a sentence for an attempted-murder when he was 16, Reyes was placed in immigration detention for 15 months. In 2023, an immigration judge ordered his release after determining he wasn’t a threat or flight risk and that ICE could not prove that they could promptly deport him.
But ICE began seeking to detain him again after police say Reyes in May kicked down an apartment door in an incident for which he was charged with felony vandalism July 2. His legal team said it was a mental health crisis in which he believed a woman he knew was trapped inside.
Judge Lin wrote in her ruling Thursday that Reyes needed to be allowed a prompt hearing.
“There are serious questions, at the very least, as to whether ICE may unilaterally deprive Petitioner of his liberty without timely review from a neutral decisionmaker,” Lin wrote. “Petitioner has shown that the balance of hardships tips sharply in his favor, and thus that issuance of a preliminary injunction is appropriate.”
The judge also set a deadline of July 29 for attorneys on both sides of the case to submit a timeline for the next proceedings in in federal court — a suit against ICE and the department of homeland security that will play out over the months ahead.