Judge Frees Cuban Plane Hijacker Awaiting Deportation
However, the ruling can’t stop ICE from detaining Morales in the future: “If removal becomes likely in the reasonably foreseeable future, ICE can re-detain.”
U.S. District Judge John E. Steele of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted Miakel Guerra Morales his habeas corpus petition.
Morales isn’t just anybody. He’s the man who hijacked a plane, claiming to have two grenades, from Cuba to Florida in 2003. He assaulted numerous crew members, too.
Morales served 20 years in prison, but ICE detained him in December.
Steele released Morales because he had been in detention too long:
Judge Steele noted that Guerra Morales had been held for more than six months since his re-arrest and said the government had failed to provide evidence that Mexico had agreed to accept him. The judge wrote that federal officials had not shown they had secured travel documents or developed a concrete plan to remove him to Mexico, Cuba or any other country.
“Respondents have had more than three years since Guerra Morales’s order of removal—and more than six months since his present detention—to remove him from the United States and are still unable to articulate a specific plan for his removal to Cuba, Mexico, or another country,” Steele wrote in court documents.
The judge also cited other federal court decisions that found Mexico’s willingness to accept Cuban nationals may depend on the migrant’s consent, which the government had not demonstrated it possessed in this case.
Morales moved to removal proceedings after serving his sentence. An immigration judge ordered his removal, but gave “him protection under the Convention Against Torture, deferring his removal to Cuba.”
President Joe Biden’s ICE released Morales “under an order of supervision on March 1, 2023.
But ICE arrested Morales on December 30, 2025, after determining the government “intended him to Mexico.”
The Department of Homeland Security is not happy:
“This activist judge forced ICE to release a criminal illegal alien who was convicted and sentenced to 22 years for hijacking a plane back into American communities,” DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis raged in a statement.
“This is yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart President Trump’s mandate from the American people to remove criminal illegal aliens from our country.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, DHS will continue to fight for the detention and removal of criminal illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country,” she said.
However, the ruling can’t stop ICE from detaining Morales in the future: “If removal becomes likely in the reasonably foreseeable future, ICE can re-detain.”
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Comments
Thanks for correcting the headline.
Plan hijackers are much more likely to be Somalian than Cuban.
An editor is a terrible mine to waist.
gave “him protection under the Convention Against Torture, deferring his removal to Cuba.”
Well, he DID hijack an airplane to get out of there. Why can’t we send him to Venezuela? They already have lots of Cubans there, I’m told.
Or, heck, give him some of that MN fraud money, let him hire and arm a bunch of folks, and he can go take care of Cuba’s problem. It gets him “home” AND helps out America in the process. (Just don’t promise him any air cover if you’re not really going to provide it.)
Hey, BS corpuscle. Lock him up.
This is a bad on two fronts. First the failure of the Admin to get this guy out since he was arrested in Dec. Many of members of the Judiciary seem eager to thwart the Trump Admin, especially immigration/removal policies. Couple that with the known problem that Cuba wasn’t likely to take him back. For folks in similar circumstances the third Nation deportation option mist be used; send him to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Secondly the woke lefty Judiciary erred here IMO. This guys circumstances meet the criteria for overcoming the limited exception to ‘shall be detained’ requirement in a habeas petition b/c of his conviction. Arguments that a convicted terrorist should be set loose b/c his home Nation doesn’t want him running loose there either and refuses to accept a dangerous criminal are Cray Cray.
I don’t understand why he wasn’t just taken to Cuban waters and put in a boat
Judge was probably prejudiced, because he enjoyed the guy’s work in “Star Trek: the next generation.”
So he can’t be detained indefinitely while a new country is found for him? I can understand that logic, but with a judge having ruled he cannot be returned to Cuba, he’s effectively an illegal who cannot be deported because nobody will accept him, and those who would are likely countries activists will refuse to accept as destinations. Ergo activist immigration judges are preventing deportation.
Here we go again. America in the Age of Victimhood.
Hijacking a plane to escape Cuba did not become a crime that was strictly enforced until Castro sent his agents into the USA to hijack planes to Cuba. Then the USA got embarrassed into enforcing the law against people seeking freedom.
NYPost:
A Clinton-appointed federal judge in Florida has died just days after he controversially released a Cuban plane hijacker who was awaiting deportation. Judge John E. Steele, 77, passed away, according to a law clerk for Chief Judge Marcia Morales Howard of the Middle District of Florida — where Steele served. A legal source in Miami also confirmed Steele’s sudden death. The circumstances of his passing were not immediately clear. Steele came under criticism for his July 8 ruling to release Cuban plane hijacker Maikel Guerra Morales from ICE custody.