A federal judge in Maine has ordered immigration officials to release an Ecuadorian man whom they flew to Texas.

Edgar Vicente Bermeo Sicha, 26, spent more than two weeks in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection after Border Patrol agents arrested him on July 28.

He came to the United States in March 2024 and was released on personal recognizance by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to court records. He was working as a carpenter in Massachusetts when he was arrested on his way to a job site in Maine with two co-workers.

It is the first instance in Maine in which a federal judge has ordered immigration officials to release someone from detention.

Border Patrol flew Bermeo Sicha and nine other people to Texas on Aug. 15, the same day that his attorney filed a petition in U.S. District Court for his release. His attorneys argued that Border Patrol agents didn’t adequately explain to Bermeo Sicha why he was being detained or give him the opportunity to challenge that decision, in violation of his constitutional right to due process.

In an order Friday, U.S. District Judge Stacey Neumann agreed. She also noted that it appeared immigration officials had ignored Bermeo Sicha’s request that an immigration judge review Border Patrol’s decision to arrest him.

“Although mired in complicated statutory and constitutional issues, ultimately this case presents a straightforward question: Whether due process required the government to give Mr. Bermeo Sicha notice and an opportunity to be heard before it revoked his original release determination and detained him,” Neumann wrote. “For the following reasons, I conclude the Fifth Amendment required as much in Mr. Bermeo Sicha’s case.”

Neumann ordered the federal government to release Beremo Sicha within 48 hours of her decision. The government has until Sept. 3 to confirm that he’s been released.

“Judge Neumann’s Order stops the Government’s illegal detention and upholds the right to due process in the District of Maine,” Matthew Morgan, one of Bermeo Sicha’s attorneys, wrote in an email Saturday afternoon.

In court records, the U.S. Attorney’s office has said Border Patrol arrested Bermeo Sicha for working without authorization and changing his state of residency without notifying immigration authorities. But Bermeo Sicha understood he was being arrested “only because the driver of the car he was in did not have ‘papers,’” Neumann wrote.

“The fact that there is a significant factual discrepancy as to the basis for Mr. Bermeo Sicha’s detention highlights the risk of erroneous deprivation without a hearing before an (immigration judge),” Neumann wrote.”That is, without a hearing on the basis for detention, there remains a risk that Mr. Bermeo Sicha is detained even though the circumstances do not warrant it.”

According to a tracker from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bermeo Sicha was being held at a facility in Los Fresnos, Texas, on Saturday morning. He has been held in at least four different facilities over the course of a month, according to Neumann’s order, including the Border Patrol’s Van Buren Station, where he slept “on a cot on the floor in a small cell with six other men.”

Several petitions, challenging the constitutionality of immigration arrests and detentions, have been filed in Maine’s U.S. District Court. In some cases, judges have temporarily barred immigration officials from moving detainees out of state — like that of Eyidi Ambila, whose petition in federal court is still on pause so the Board of Immigration Appeals can consider his larger request for protection under the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture, which prevents the U.S. from sending people to places where they would suffer torture.

In July, Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker partially granted a Brazilian woman’s petition by ordering that the government offer her a bond hearing in immigration court, so she could advocate for her release from custody there.

Walker did not go as far as ordering the woman’s release, but his decision still played an important role in Neumann’s. She wrote that it demonstrated the U.S. District Court’s authority to weigh in on constitutional questions in immigration cases, which are otherwise decided by immigration judges. (Unlike traditional courts, immigration court is an administrative process run by the Department of Justice.)

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has responded to many of these petitions, in Maine and other federal courts, by arguing that the immigration process should be left up to DOJ’s immigration court system.