Federal judge rebukes ICE's arrest tactics in two Long Island immigration cases

A federal judge delivered a scathing rebuke of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's alleged tactics in the arrests of two immigrants on Long Island, ordering agents to appear in court for a hearing to determine whether the men were lawfully detained.

Judge Sanket J. Bulsara of the Eastern District of New York said in his Thursday ruling that several ICE officers involved in the 2026 arrests of Erik Sigfredo Parada Cruz and Rene Antonio Benitez should testify in an April 30 hearing. Both men had been released from detention in February after the court issued preliminary writs of habeas corpus — a legal tool often used to challenge a person’s incarceration.

In his order calling for the hearing, Bulsara, a Biden appointee, criticized some of ICE's alleged practices and chastised what he wrote was the government lawyers' use of “hide-the-ball litigation tactics” to prevent scrutiny of the agency’s potentially illegal conduct. 

When ICE seeks to make an arrest, Bulsara wrote, citing case law, there must be an official notice to appear issued, making "removal proceedings initiated before or at the time of the arrest." The notice is a necessary precursor to an arrest warrant, which must be secured before an arrest is made, the judge wrote.

In Parada Cruz's case, according to the judge, ICE relied on an "invalid" notice to appear issued in 2005. The case in general had been vacated in 2019, Bulsara wrote.

In each case, Bulsara wrote, it also appeared that the warrants themselves were not issued until after the arrests were made.

After-the-fact arrest warrants are "fundamentally at odds with and offensive to lawful, constitutional behavior in this country," he wrote.

"Police and law enforcement cannot operate as roving bands, detaining individuals, figuring out the reasons later, and papering over their failures afterwards," Bulsara said in his order.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which prosecutes immigration issues locally, declined to comment.

But in court papers, the government’s lawyers in part argued that the court is without jurisdiction to continue Parada Cruz's case because he has been released. They also argued that prior case law cited by the judge should not necessarily apply to all immigration detentions, documents show. The government had requested the cancellation of at least one prior hearing with several ICE officers to consider the legality of Parada Cruz's detention. The federal government made similar arguments in Benitez's case, so Bulsara decided that the forthcoming hearing will cover both cases. 

Bulsara, responding to the government's lawyers, said they were either deploying delay tactics or finding excuses "to avoid producing officers for a basic fact-finding hearing."

"Such hide-the-ball litigation tactics corrode both the Court’s and the public’s confidence that Respondents are even trying notionally to adhere to constitutional requirements," he added.

Parada Cruz, a Salvadoran national, was commuting to work in Roosevelt when he was arrested on Feb. 26, according to court records.

Benitez, a resident of Brentwood, had lived in the United States for nearly 15 years when officers pulled him over and took him into custody in February, court documents show. He had been driving his daughter to school. Benitez is one of several petitioners in a federal class-action lawsuit accusing ICE of detaining immigrants due to their perceived race and ethnicity.

"It’s unfair that only because of looking or sounding Hispanic, that only for that, they detain you," he said in a previous interview in Spanish with Newsday.

Both men have been released from custody, with provisional writs of habeas corpus granted without final decisions, the judge said.

Bulsara says he has heard at least 10 cases in which ICE agents had apparently arrested people and then determined the cause afterward. In none of those instances, he said, has the U.S. Attorney’s Office "cited a case, regulation, or legal principle that would permit this practice."

"The silence," he said, "is deafening." 

By Tiffany Cusaac-Smith

tiffany.cusaac-smith@newsday.com@T_Cusaac

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith is a general assignment reporter for Newsday. She previously worked at USA TODAY and is an alum of Howard University.