KDSN RADIO News
Mexican national ordered set free from Woodbury County jail
(Radio Iowa) – A federal judge is ordering the release of a man who was detained in northwest Iowa for being in the country without legal status. Armando Garcia Picazo was sent to the Woodbury County jail in early August after ICE agents picked him up. Guy Weinstein is Garcia Picazo’s lawyer and says his client was forced to stay behind bars, even though a judge set a bond so he could try to legally stay in the U.S.
Weinstein says, “What the public doesn’t realize is that there’s a lot of individuals like Armando Garcia Picasso that have zero criminal history, they’ve been here in the community for a number of years, that this administration is trying to remove.” He says Garcia Picazo came to the U.S. from Mexico nine years ago and has worked in the Sioux City metro area as a mechanic. Weinstein says since his client has no criminal record, he has a strong case to stay in the country legally.
“What this administration is doing is making it really, really challenging for anyone who’s caught up in the immigration detention to be released,” he says. Judge Leonard Strand says Garcia Picazo should be immediately released after posting a six-thousand-dollar bond. Strand recently made a similar ruling in another case. He said Noel Lopez De La Cruz of Mount Pleasant should have a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
Lopez De La Cruz, who is 24, lived most of his life in the U.S. ICE took him into custody in August from the Muscatine County Jail, where he was being held on a charge of marijuana possession. The charges were dropped.
