A federal judge in Minnesota on Sunday ordered the immediate release of a Canadian-born dentist who has spent nine days in immigration custody, ruling that his arrest and detention violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In a 16-page emergency order filed on November 1, U.S. District Judge Michael J. Davis granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus of the petitioner styled in court as 'William L.' — the 32-year-old dentist from Mississauga, Ontario, whom his family and CBS Minnesota have publicly named as Dr. William Lizardo — and directed that he be released from the Sherburne County Jail into Minnesota on his own recognizance, 'in no instance' later than 6:00 p.m. Central Standard Time on Sunday.
Source: U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota — Emergency Order, Case No. 26-04609 (MJD/DLM)
This is the latest development in a case this newsroom reported on October 24, when Lizardo was taken into ICE custody at the end of an immigration interview in St. Paul. An immigration court reopened his removal case on October 28 after finding he had shown sufficient evidence that he never received notice of his hearing — but he remained behind bars until Sunday's federal order. Read the earlier report: dentist taken into ICE custody at green-card interview
'The hubris of admitting that USCIS made a big mistake'
Judge Davis did not soften his language. 'The hubris of admitting that USCIS made a big mistake, but not even offering any sort of relief is galling, although not surprising,' he wrote. 'There is no combination of facts or legal argument that can support this position.' The judge said the facts were 'so appalling and so well supported' that he could have written a long order with commentary on the abuses the dentist suffered, but cut it short for one reason: 'because the Court is determined that Petitioner will not spend another night in the Sherburne County Jail, the following order cuts to the legal necessities.'
On the Fourth Amendment, the court held that Lizardo's arrest had 'no lawful predicate.' He was originally detained on a Form I-205 warrant of removal built on a final removal order — but that order has now been vacated by the immigration court, and no new warrant or custody determination replaced it, making the arrest 'functionally warrantless.' Federal law, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2), allows a warrantless immigration arrest only where an officer has reason to believe the person is in the country illegally and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, and the burden of proving both elements sits with the government. Davis found USCIS had no probable cause to believe Lizardo was in the country illegally — its own files and communications proved he no longer lived at the address to which the hearing notice and removal order were sent — and that ICE agents had no reason to believe he was a flight risk: he had appeared at every appointment he was actually notified of, kept USCIS informed of every address change, has a wife and young daughter in Minnesota, and filed more than a dozen letters of community support.
How a paperwork chain put a dentist in a cell
The order reconstructs the chain in detail. Lizardo came to Minnesota in 2019 on an F-1 student visa to study at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry, graduated in 2023, and married a dental-school classmate who is a U.S. citizen; their daughter was born in April 2025. His wife Lauren filed a Form I-130 petition for him on September 27, 2023, and he filed his Form I-485 green-card application at the same time. The I-130 was approved on January 9, 2025. He practised dentistry in federally designated 'shortage areas' until his work authorization was revoked, and has since volunteered as a dentist at a low-cost clinic in Burnsville, Minnesota. He has never been arrested in the United States, and the court noted he appeared at every scheduled USCIS appointment — including the one at which he was arrested. Every time the family moved, he filed change-of-address notices with the post office and with USCIS, and USCIS wrote back to him at each new address.
The break in the chain came over an old Canadian file. On March 7, 2025, USCIS said his I-485 application 'did not sufficiently establish [his] eligibility at the time of filing,' denied it and asked for more evidence, which he provided. On January 15, 2026, USCIS denied the application again — 'for want of a certified Ontario court record concerning a 2012 charge that the Crown had withdrawn after diversion.' That denial was mailed to the family's then-address in Hedgesville, West Virginia, and warned USCIS 'may issue you a Notice to Appear' if he did not leave within 33 days. On February 5, 2026, his lawyer filed a Form I-290B appeal listing the Hedgesville address; USCIS confirmed receipt, and that appeal is still pending.
Nineteen days later, on February 24, 2026 — forty days after USCIS had mailed its own decision to Hedgesville and been told in writing that he lived there — the Department of Homeland Security issued the Notice to Appear, setting a March 26, 2026 hearing in Virginia immigration court. It was sent to an address he had already left. He did not appear on March 26, because, the court found, he never knew about the hearing, and he was ordered removed in absentia. He first learned that a notice, a hearing and a removal order existed on October 23, 2026, when he appeared with his lawyer at an immigration interview in St. Paul: at the end of the interview, two ICE agents arrested him on the I-205 warrant, signed by ICE official David Easterwood, and he was taken to the Sherburne County Jail.
Source: CBS Minnesota (WCCO) reporting, via DentalTown
Lizardo fought on two tracks. On October 25 he asked the immigration court in Sterling, Virginia, to rescind the in-absentia order and reopen his case for lack of notice, and the same day he filed the federal habeas petition; that night, the district court barred the government from removing him from its jurisdiction while the petition was decided. On October 28, the immigration court granted the reopening, accepting that he had shown sufficient evidence of lack of notice — the development his family described to WCCO while noting he was still, at that point, in a cell. Late on Friday, October 30, the government asked the federal court to dismiss the habeas case as moot, arguing that with the removal order vacated he was simply being held under a different statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2). Lizardo's lawyers answered on Sunday morning, and Judge Davis ruled the same day.
Release into Minnesota at a safe time and place, told to his counsel at least one hour ahead, and never later than 6:00 p.m. CST on November 1; all personal items taken at his arrest returned; release on his own recognizance; no re-detention, transfer or removal 'on any theory' unless the government first files a motion for leave and the court grants it — with the government bearing the burden of proving, by clear and convincing evidence, that no conditions could reasonably assure his appearance and the community's safety; written confirmation of the release to the court within 24 hours; the government's motion to dismiss denied with prejudice; and the court keeping jurisdiction to enforce the order.
On the Fifth Amendment, Davis applied the Supreme Court's due-process balancing test and found all three factors in Lizardo's favour. USCIS had once paroled him back into the United States from Canada to finish his application process, the judge noted, and he 'came into the country legally and has followed the letter of the law on every step of his immigration process. It is only but for USCIS's own error that he was ever in custody.' Keeping him locked up, the court added, was also 'a waste of financial and administrative resources.' His habeas lawyers were Hassan M. Ahmad of Sterling, Virginia, and Stephanie Morales of Minneapolis; the government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David W. Fuller and Carl Berry. ICE's public position, given to CBS Minnesota on October 27, had been that Lizardo was arrested after a records check found a final order of removal, that he had overstayed his lawful entry, that USCIS denied his application in January and that an immigration judge ordered him removed on March 26 — and that a pending request for relief does not halt enforcement. The agencies had not published a response to Sunday's order in the sources checked on Sunday evening; under the order, their confirmation of his release is due to the court within 24 hours.
What happens next
Release does not end Lizardo's immigration case; it returns it to the ordinary track. His reopened removal proceedings continue before the immigration court, his I-290B appeal of the green-card denial remains pending, and the government cannot detain, transfer or remove him again without first persuading Judge Davis's court. The ruling also lands in the middle of a wider national fight over warrantless immigration arrests — the same legal question at issue in the Escobar Molina litigation in Washington, D.C., where a coalition of state attorneys general has backed limits on arrests made without a warrant or a flight-risk finding — and it is the latest in a line of Minnesota habeas decisions this year ordering detainees released where the government could not justify the arrest. For immigrant families — including Punjabi diaspora families in Minnesota and across the United States working through green-card files — the case is a documented warning about how the system can fail even a paper-perfect applicant: Lizardo filed every address change the law asked of him, and the one notice that decided his case still went to a home he had left, in a state he no longer lived in, while the agency's own files held the right address.