A federal judge late Tuesday ordered immigration authorities to release a 20-year-old single mother from Venezuela who was detained last week in what appeared to be the second recent major operation targeting agricultural workers at a Madison tomato plant.
Meanwhile, a different judge Wednesday ordered the release of a 34-year-old Venezuelan man detained in the same U.S. Customs and Border Protection bust.
Both challenged their detentions through a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a legal mechanism those detained by immigration authorities have been using to argue for their release and their right to bond hearings. Immigration courts fall under the executive branch, while habeas petitions are filed in federal district courts.
In its responses on behalf of several agencies and high-ranking officials named in the two petitions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maine said Customs and Border Protection claims it has authority to detain people pending removal proceedings in cases like these. But the government attorneys recognized federal judges have largely disagreed with CBP’s legal reasoning and ordered officials to provide bond hearings.
That has been the office’s stance on nearly every recent, similar habeas petition filed amid a wave of federal immigration enforcement in Maine this year.
SINGLE MOTHER SEEKING ASYLUM
Tuesday evening, U.S. District Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. ordered officials to release Yubizay del Carmen Torrealba Linarez by 8 p.m.
Woodcock also ordered officials to provide a bond hearing for Torrealba Linarez in immigration court and ordered her to attend it.
Woodcock had issued an initial ruling earlier Tuesday ordering the government to provide the bond hearing and urging her attorney and government officials to agree to a release plan, given she has serious medical problems. Torrealba Linarez’s attorney, Talia Rothstein of Pine Tree Legal Assistance, wrote in court filings that her client’s health was deteriorating while she was in custody.
Torrealba Linarez is a single mother to a 4-year-old daughter, who was being taken care of by family who live in the area, according to court filings.
Those concerns prompted Woodcock, who called Torrealba a “good candidate” for release, to call a meeting with attorneys Tuesday evening. He then ordered her to be released later that night.
Torrealba Linarez, 20, had been held at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in Fort Fairfield since agents Feb. 25 detained her and other workers in a van heading to Backyard Farms’ greenhouses in Madison, court records state.
Rothstein filed the petition Thursday on her behalf.
Torrealba Linarez has been seeking asylum in the U.S. for more than a year after fleeing political violence in Venezuela, according to court filings. She began participating in political protests in Venezuela in 2021, and faced “at least “thirteen incidents of violent repression at the hands of the Maduro regime,” the petition states.
After she was paroled into the country in December 2024, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, at some point, initiated removal proceedings, and Torrealba Linarez applied for asylum, the petition states. The asylum case is pending.
She has no criminal history, according to the petition.
ANOTHER ASYLUM SEEKER
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Stacey D. Neumann ordered CBP to immediately release another Backyard Farms worker detained Feb. 25, court records show.
Junior Xavier Guedez, 34, also fled Venezuela for political reasons, according to his habeas petition, filed Tuesday.
Guedez entered the U.S. July 2023 without documentation and has a pending asylum case, his petition said.
Agents allegedly told Guedez, also being held at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Fort Fairfield, that he had to sign a deportation order, the petition said. One of his attorneys, Kelsey Lee, in another filing pointed to issues at the facility, including limited access to toilets, showers and medical assistance.
Guedez and Torrealba Linarez are the latest of those detained in similar immigration enforcement operations in Skowhegan to challenge their detentions.
Federal agents detained a busload of workers heading from Backyard Farms’ employee housing in Skowhegan to its greenhouses in Madison in an early morning operation Feb. 10.
A judge later ordered authorities to release one of those workers, a Venezuelan man who had entered the country as an unaccompanied child. Two other Venezuelan men who challenged their detentions withdrew their habeas petitions shortly after filing them.
It is unknown what happened to the rest of those detained in both the Feb. 10 and Feb. 25 enforcement actions.
The first raid came after U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said DHS’s enhanced enforcement efforts in the state had ended in late January. Collins’ office, relaying information from DHS, said the Feb. 10 raid was an unrelated “targeted operation” unrelated to what DHS called “Operation Catch of the Day.”
CBP is part of DHS, which also includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and several other agencies.
As of Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection has not released information about its recent activity involving the Backyard Farms workers. A regional agency spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, said multiple times last week that he was waiting for approval from more senior agency officials before sharing details. He did not respond to a message Wednesday.
Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection have not responded to multiple emailed requests for information.
Backyard Farms’ Canadian parent company, Mastronardi Produce, has confirmed only that several contracted workers did not arrive to its Madison facility the days of both operations and declined to answer other questions.
“As a company, Backyard Farms takes employment compliance very seriously,” Mastronardi said in a statement.
The owner of the local bus company providing transportation to the workers arrested Feb. 10 said they were employed by a Michigan-based contractor, Martinez and Sons. Efforts to reach representatives of that company have been unsuccessful.
Staff Writer Emily Allen contributed to this story.
