The Trump administration has released a man held in immigration detention in Minnesota after a federal judge warned he would hold the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in contempt for repeatedly defying court orders.
Juan Tobay Robles, an Ecuadorian national detained by federal immigration agents earlier this month, was released from custody and transferred to Texas, his attorney confirmed Tuesday. The release came one day after Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz ordered acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to personally appear in court to explain the agency’s failure to comply with a judicial order in the case.
Tobay Robles’ attorney, Graham Ojala-Barbour, said the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis informed him of the release. He added that he had not yet spoken directly with his client since his freedom was secured. The development means Lyons will no longer be required to testify at a scheduled hearing Friday, which had been set to determine whether he should be held in contempt.
Judge Schiltz, appointed by former President George W. Bush, had issued a sharply worded order on Monday citing ICE’s failure to either provide Tobay Robles with a bond hearing or release him within seven days, as previously directed by the court. In that order, Schiltz said the administration’s conduct was part of a broader pattern of noncompliance.
“This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” the judge wrote, adding later that the court’s “patience is at an end.” He described ordering the head of a federal agency to appear in person as “extraordinary,” but said ICE’s violations were equally extraordinary and that lesser measures had failed.
The judge had made clear that the contempt hearing would be canceled only if Tobay Robles was released before Friday — a condition now met. ICE did not respond to requests for comment.
Court filings show Tobay Robles entered the United States without inspection as a minor around 1999 and has lived in the country for decades. He was taken into ICE custody at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, home to the agency’s St. Paul field office. On January 14, Judge Schiltz ruled that Tobay Robles was not subject to mandatory detention under federal law and ordered that he be immediately released or granted a bond hearing within seven days.
Despite that order, Ojala-Barbour informed the court on January 23 that his client remained detained and had not received a bond hearing, prompting the judge’s latest intervention.
In his most recent order, Schiltz criticized the administration’s immigration enforcement strategy in Minnesota, noting that thousands of federal agents had been deployed without adequate preparation for the resulting wave of legal challenges. He said the practical consequences of ICE’s noncompliance had “almost always been significant hardship” for detainees, many of whom, he noted, have lived and worked in the U.S. for years and committed no crimes.
The case unfolds amid heightened scrutiny of federal immigration operations in Minnesota, where the Trump administration has surged agents since December. The intensified enforcement has sparked protests, legal challenges, and political backlash, particularly following recent fatal encounters involving border agents. President Donald Trump said this week that White House border czar Tom Homan has been dispatched to Minnesota to oversee ICE operations, with the administration vowing to continue aggressive enforcement.
For now, the release of Tobay Robles appears to have averted a rare courtroom confrontation between the federal judiciary and the leadership of ICE — but Judge Schiltz’s orders signal growing judicial impatience with what he described as systematic disregard for court authority.
