Edward Martinez-Cermeno, a Venezuelan migrant crawled into ice raids in the Chicago area, ordered by the federal judge

Schaumburg, Ill. (WLS) – While President Donald Trump and immigration officials have promoted violent criminals overcoming the list of people arrested in recent or raid arrest operations, some cases reviewed by ABC 7 I-Team show otherwise.

Most of these new cases of immigration arrest and records of the Federal Court are sealed from the public’s opinion, but the I-Team found a case that was before a judge on Tuesday.

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The judicial appearance ended with the judge who ordered a Venezuelan migrant swept into immigration raids around Chicago last weekend to be released from custody immediately, after immigration officials did not have the necessary legal documentation for stop it and deport it.

Edward Martinez-Cermeno, 24, was arrested in Schaumburg on Sunday for a minor crime to illegally enter the United States in 2023.

The NATIONAL SECURITY INVESTIGATION agents of the United States. .

Martínez-Cermeno’s federal defender said in the Court that he fled Venezuela to the United States for his security, after working as a police officer.

After crossing the border and arriving in Chicago, Martínez-Cermeno has been living with the parents of his girlfriend, Maria and Ruben Occhipinti, the couple said Tuesday I-Team on Tuesday.

Walking through the halls of the Chicago Federal Court building, the Ochipintis said they are still trying to shake the trauma of what happened last Sunday, just before 8 pm, when immigration agents appeared at their door for Martínez -Cermeno.

“They pointed to me and my husband with their weapons, they knocked him to the ground,” said Maria, speaking in Spanish. “They simply left without an explanation. They didn’t show many, no document. We were afraid, we are all in crisis.”

It is not clear what exactly led immigration agents to the door of Ochipintis on Sunday.

The records of the Cook Count Court show that the Chicago police arrested Martínez-Cermeno for a retail robbery of serious crimes in January 2024, and an order was issued for his arrest after he did not appear before the court.

But Tuesday’s audience only dealt with the immigration position in which he was arrested – 8: 1325 (a) (1) or “inappropriate entry by Alien”.

That position is a minor crime, not a serious crime, and the magistrate judge determined that while the case proceeds, Martínez-Cermeno should be released.

The judge concluded that Martínez-Cermeno was not a “risk of serious flight” in part due to a pending asylum case that is scheduled to be heard in April 2026, and its ties with the community through the Occhipinti family.

After spending approximately 48 hours in federal custody, first in the offices of HSI in Lombard, then in the federal prison of MCC Chicago, Martinez -Cermeno is scheduled to be released from custody on Tuesday night.

While prosecutors mentioned that there is an “ice arrest” for Martínez-Cermeno, and that ICE would probably stop him in his release, the judge said that this was legally unacceptable since ICE did not have the appropriate court order to stop it even more, And that an ice arrest is just a “civil application.”

The case of retail robbery of Cook County is still open, and has not yet submitted a supplication to the position of severe crime.

While Martínez-Cermeno was in the federal court, White House officials were promoting the message of President Trump to “launch the greatest mass deportation operation in the history of the United States.”

On Tuesday, the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said: “If you are an individual, a foreign citizen who enters the United States of America illegally, you are, by definition, a criminal.”

Former immigration officials tell the I-Team that the current approach to the new administration does not focus on public safety, but focuses on the “volume and quotas.”

“The immigration and customs application has the most difficult work in the application of the law,” said Jason Houser, former ICE cabinet chief during the Biden administration. “When you do it on this quota game, or you do, you know, ‘we need to put so many people in custody’, that takes (he) emphasis far from public safety. “

Houser explained the necessary work by immigration researchers to arrest violent criminals, drug traffickers and sex, require hundreds of hours of research work.

“That is not a volume game, where you can say, ‘go arrest 35 of them today,” Houser explained. “When you create those numbers like that, those quotas, you put the pressure point in the officers to leave and arrest the most accessible.”