Federal prosecutors misreported ICE detainee's Maine location to court, nearly stripping habeas jurisdiction

On Jan. 26, 2026, U.S. District Court filings revealed that federal prosecutors had told a Maine judge, incorrectly, that immigration detainee Cristian Yair de la Cruz Guillermo had already been moved out of state -- a claim that, left uncorrected, would have forced his habeas case out of the court's jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maine made the claim the prior week based on location information supplied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then corrected it the same day to say Guillermo remained in Fort Fairfield, Maine. Guillermo was one of nine construction workers Border Patrol arrested without a warrant near Bethel, Maine on Jan. 15, days before ICE launched a larger enforcement operation in the state; his attorney had filed a habeas petition on Jan. 22 arguing the arrest was unlawful and seeking his release.

Federal habeas jurisdiction requires a petitioner to be physically located in the judge's district at the time of filing, so the government's erroneous claim that Guillermo had already left Maine would have forced his attorney to withdraw the petition and refile it in Massachusetts -- resetting the case and delaying judicial review of his detention. U.S. District Judge John Woodcock Jr. reiterated in the Jan. 26 filings that immigration officials could not remove Guillermo from the state, and issued a temporary restraining order barring officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ICE, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security from moving him, saying he wanted to "rectify the complications" ICE had caused. Woodcock noted the government had similarly misreported, in an unrelated case, the whereabouts of another detainee it had already moved to Massachusetts before informing the court -- in violation of a standing order that she remain in Maine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Lizotte said ICE had misinformed his office of Guillermo's actual location and that his staff corrected the court as soon as they learned of the error. Maine attorneys told the Portland Press Herald that detainees being "shuffled between states and facilities" with limited access to counsel has intensified as the Justice Department denies bond hearings to immigrants more often; almost 50 immigration habeas petitions were filed in Maine in the year before this filing, compared with zero in 2024. A subsequent review found the misreporting was not an isolated incident: by late February 2026, four federal judges hearing New England immigration-detention cases, including two other Maine cases, had ordered detainees' immediate release after finding ICE had filed false court documents or defied a judge's order.

Updates

2026-01-28 — Guillermo granted a bond hearing, posted $100 bond and was released [2]

Woodcock approved Guillermo's request for a bond hearing on Jan. 28, and Guillermo posted a $100 bond and was released from custody the same day.

2026-01-31 — Judge ruled Border Patrol violated the constitutional rights of three Bethel workers [2]

In a series of filings, Woodcock ruled that Border Patrol agents had violated the constitutional rights of three of the nine construction workers arrested without a warrant near Bethel on Jan. 15 -- including Guillermo -- and ordered bond hearings for them. He ordered federal agents to produce a warrant for Guillermo's arrest, and ordered two other petitioners who had been moved to Louisiana returned to Maine.