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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