A federal judge in Minnesota has ruled that immigration officers acted unlawfully when they arrested a former DACA recipient without a warrant after a routine traffic stop in North Dakota, and ordered him released from immigration detention. U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim found that Ivan De Haro Villagrana was “improperly arrested and detained” because the arrest did not satisfy the federal statute that governs warrantless immigration arrests, Newsweek reported on Friday, November 6, in the first public reporting of the November 2 order.

Source: Newsweek, via Immigration Analytics (Nov. 6, 2026)

The order, issued November 2 in the habeas corpus case docketed as 0:2026cv04612 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, goes to a pattern behind many recent detention challenges across the United States: a local traffic stop, a phone call to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arrest first, and the paperwork afterward. De Haro's legal team has confirmed his release, Newsweek reported, while declining to comment further.

A headlight stop in Watford City, a phone call, an arrest

According to the court order as reported by Newsweek, De Haro is a citizen of Mexico who was brought to the United States in 2002 at the age of 5. He obtained deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2016; his DACA was not renewed around 2021 following a conviction for driving under the influence.

On September 22, 2026, McKenzie County Sheriff's Deputy Brady Gustafson stopped De Haro in Watford City, North Dakota, for driving without headlights, according to court filings reported by Newsweek. De Haro was unable to provide identification. The deputy called an ICE officer, who checked records and directed the deputy by phone to arrest him on immigration grounds.

De Haro was transferred to ICE custody on September 23. His administrative warrant, Form I-200, and his Notice to Appear are both dated September 23 — the day after the arrest, and after he was already in custody. ICE transported him to the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River, Minnesota, where he remained detained when the judge ruled.

Why the judge said the arrest broke the law

The statute at the centre of the case, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2), lets an immigration officer arrest a person without a warrant only when the officer has reason to believe the person is in the country unlawfully AND is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 287.8(c)(2)(ii) repeats the same escape requirement. The two conditions are separate: meeting the first does not excuse the second.

Source: Immigration Analytics — analysis of 8 U.S.C. 1357 and 8 C.F.R. 287.8

Judge Tunheim accepted that ICE had reason to believe De Haro was removable after he confirmed his status during the phone interview. What the government had not shown, the judge found, was any likelihood that he would escape before a warrant could be obtained. “Removability alone is not a reason to believe that a noncitizen is likely to escape,” the judge wrote, in reasoning reported by Newsweek, which also noted that the Eighth Circuit reads the statute's “reason to believe” language to require probable cause.

The federal government had argued that De Haro was a flight risk because he was in a working vehicle and lived far from an ICE office, and that his detention was lawful and mandatory under federal immigration law. The judge rejected each point: those arguments would describe almost anyone stopped while driving in a rural county, and accepting them would make the escape requirement automatic for every removable driver. The warrantless-arrest exceptions, the court wrote, “were not enacted for and should not be used to promote the convenience of an arresting officer.”

The court ordered De Haro released within 48 hours of the November 2 order, without conditions such as a tracking device, with 12 hours' notice to his lawyers and the return of his property and documents. The parties were ordered to update the court on his release by November 5 and to say by November 9 whether any further court proceedings are needed.

What this ruling does — and does not — do

A district court order binds only the parties to the case, but its reasoning is likely to be cited by other detainees arrested the same way, and the issue is being litigated well beyond Minnesota: earlier this fall an Oregon judge found that ICE had broken his order on warrantless arrests in that state, and Minnesota's federal judges have ordered other releases this season, including that of a Canadian-born dentist arrested at his green card interview. Legal analysts note that ICE has re-detained people after habeas wins in at least 20 cases nationwide.

Release also does not end De Haro's immigration case. Courts rarely suppress evidence in removal proceedings because of an unlawful arrest, so the Notice to Appear issued on September 23 can still move forward in immigration court, and the order does not restore his lapsed DACA. Newsweek reported that it had contacted ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment and was awaiting responses; the account does not say whether the order addresses a fresh arrest under a properly issued warrant.

Why it matters for immigrant and Punjabi families

For the Punjabi diaspora — including truck drivers who cross rural counties on routes like those through North Dakota and Minnesota every day — the case sets out, in a judge's own reasoning, exactly where the line sits: a traffic stop and a records check alone do not, without more, give officers a legal basis to skip the warrant. That does not make any individual stop safe or unsafe; it means the escape question has to be answered with facts about the person, not with the mere fact that they were driving.

What happens next

The next fixed date is November 9, when the parties must tell the court whether further proceedings are needed. The government can appeal the order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the open question — flagged in the reporting — is what ICE does next, including whether it seeks a fresh arrest under a properly issued warrant. Until then, the verified position is narrow: the September arrest was unlawful, the detention that followed it was unlawful, and De Haro has been released.