An immigration judge in Memphis has granted bond to Beata Siemionkowicz, the 57-year-old Chicago-area green card holder from Poland whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held since August 2025 — roughly fifteen months — ruling on Friday, November 6, that the government failed to show she is a danger to the community or likely to flee. The decision, reported by the Chicago Tribune, came at the new bond hearing that a federal judge in Covington, Kentucky had ordered three days earlier, on November 3, in her habeas case Siemionkowicz v. Daley — the ruling this newsroom reported on November 4, which required the hearing to be held within seven days and placed the burden of proof on the government rather than on her. Whether she actually walks out of the Campbell County Detention Center in northern Kentucky now depends largely on whether the Department of Homeland Security appeals.
Source: Chicago Tribune via Daily Herald, Nov. 7, 2026, as reported by Immigration Analytics
"The court finds that the department has failed to establish that the respondent is a danger or flight risk," the immigration judge wrote, according to the Tribune, which identified her as Judge Angelica Powers of the Memphis Immigration Court. The Tribune did not report the bond amount or any conditions attached to it, and it said the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A bond grant in immigration court is a custody decision only: it does not cancel her removal case, and it does not by itself open the detention-centre door — an immigration judge's custody ruling can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and her actual release depends on how the government responds.
Source: Chicago Tribune via Daily Herald, Nov. 7, 2026
The Hearing That a Federal Judge Ordered
Friday's hearing existed only because of the November 3 order in Siemionkowicz v. Daley, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Covington Division. Hearing her habeas corpus petition, the federal court found that holding her under the mandatory-detention statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), for more than a year with no bond hearing at all violated due process, and it ordered a new hearing within seven days at which the government — not Siemionkowicz — would bear the burden of proving that continued detention was warranted. At the first bond process back in August 2025, the burden had run the other way: Immigration Judge Kelly Johnson in Memphis denied bond after treating Siemionkowicz as a flight risk and, her lawyers say, requiring her to prove she was not one. That reversal of who must prove what is the hinge of the whole case, and on Friday it decided the outcome.
Siemionkowicz is a native and citizen of Poland who has lived continuously in the United States since 1995 — more than three decades — and received her green card in 2003. She is a single mother of two U.S. citizen daughters in the Chicago area and has worked for many years as a caregiver, including caring for hospice patients, according to her lawyers at the ACLU of Illinois and the ACLU of Kentucky. After the November 3 ruling her daughters spoke publicly. "My sister and I are grateful to the court," said Gabi Siemionkowicz, the younger daughter. "This ruling gives us hope that we might be able to hug our mother soon." Her older sister Claudia added: "All we want is a fair chance for our mother in the courts. We hope this is a step in getting her back to the family that loves her."
Source: ACLU of Illinois press release, Nov. 4, 2026; LINK nky, Sep. 10, 2026
Why She Was Detained
ICE took Siemionkowicz into custody on August 2, 2025, at her daughter's home, and she has been held since then at the Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky, hundreds of miles from her Chicago-area family. According to the ACLU, the arrest rested on two separate misdemeanour retail-theft charges from more than fifteen years ago, matters that were resolved with court supervision and a conditional charge. She has not been charged with any crime in more than fifteen years, and she has never been charged or convicted of a violent crime. In December 2025, an immigration judge denied her application to cancel her removal order; she has appealed that decision, and that appeal — separate from the detention fight — is still ongoing, which means her immigration case continues even if she is released on bond.
Source: Habeas petition, Siemionkowicz v. Daley (filed Sep. 9, 2026); ACLU of Illinois case page
Her lawyers filed the habeas petition on September 9, 2026, naming Campbell County Jailer James A. Daley and federal immigration officials, and arguing that detaining her for over twelve months without the government establishing, by clear and convincing evidence, that she is a danger or a flight risk violated her Fifth Amendment right to due process. "The court recognized that Beata's lengthy detention merits a new bond hearing with the burden on the government to demonstrate that she should still be detained," said Hirsh M. Joshi, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Illinois, after the November 3 ruling. "Our client is a hard-working mother, someone who has cared for hospice patients. Her detention serves no purpose other than cruelty. She deserves to be released." Bethany Baxter of the ACLU of Kentucky added that the government should bear the burden of justifying why someone remains detained. Friday's bond decision is the first custody ruling in the case made under that government-burden standard — and the government did not meet it.
Source: ACLU of Illinois press release, Nov. 4, 2026; habeas petition, E.D. Ky.
An immigration judge's bond decision can be appealed by the Department of Homeland Security to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The Chicago Tribune did not report the bond amount or conditions, and DHS had not immediately commented. Until any appeal question is settled and the bond is posted, Siemionkowicz remains at the Campbell County Detention Center — and her separate appeal against the denial of cancellation of removal continues either way.
Why This Matters Beyond One Family
The case has been watched closely by immigrant families far beyond Chicago because it tests, in one named person's life, the two questions running through the current detention system: how long can the government hold a long-term green card holder whose record consists of old, minor, non-violent charges, and who has to prove what to keep her there. For Punjabi and other South Asian families in Illinois and across the Midwest — including green card holders carrying decades-old minor records from their early years in America — the sequence matters practically: a federal habeas petition forced a hearing, the burden shift decided the hearing, and the same route remains open, case by case, to others in long detention. Nothing in Friday's decision changes national policy, frees anyone else, or ends Siemionkowicz's own removal proceedings; it is one judge's finding, on one record, that the government did not prove its own detainee was dangerous or a flight risk after fifteen months.
Source: Awaaz Punjab analysis of the court orders and the Tribune report
What is solid
- An immigration judge in Memphis granted Siemionkowicz bond on Friday, November 6, 2026, finding the government failed to establish she is a danger or a flight risk (Chicago Tribune)
- The hearing was the one a federal judge ordered on November 3, 2026 in Siemionkowicz v. Daley, with the burden of proof placed on the government
- She has been detained since August 2, 2025 at the Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky, and has lived in the U.S. since 1995
- Her separate appeal against the December 2025 denial of cancellation of removal is still ongoing
What is only claimed
- Whether she is actually released soon — that depends on whether DHS appeals the bond grant to the Board of Immigration Appeals; the bond amount and conditions have not been reported
- Whether the burden-shifting approach in her habeas case will be followed for other long-detained green card holders — her lawyers present it as a model; the government has not conceded the point nationally
What happens next: the immediate question is the government's — whether the Department of Homeland Security appeals the bond grant, and on what timeline, a step that could keep her detained while the appeal is considered. If no appeal blocks it, the bond must be posted and she would be released to her family in the Chicago area while her removal appeal continues. The ACLU had not, in the reports available on Saturday, announced a release date or the bond amount, and DHS had not told the Tribune its intentions. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when her release, or an appeal, is confirmed.