Juan Francisco Méndez might finally get to see his wife and 9-year-old son again soon, all thanks to a judge who said federal officials messed up big time when they arrested him.
A judge recently gave the green light to release the Guatemalan man, Juan Francisco Méndez, who got arrested in New Bedford last month when an immigration agent smashed his car window. Judge Donald Ostrom put his foot down on Thursday and said that 29-year-old Juan Francisco Méndez, who doesn’t have a criminal record, should be set free because of a prosecution hiccup, according to a Boston Globe report. The ruling came after Méndez’s lawyer, Ondine Gálvez Sniffin, threw down the gauntlet during a remote bond hearing and argued that federal officials didn’t do their due diligence and file the right paperwork, according to the paper.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials swooped in and arrested Méndez outside his New Bedford crib on April 14 while he and his wife, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, were cruising to a dentist appointment. Ortiz caught the whole shebang on video, which ended up going viral on social media. In the video, Méndez is heard chatting with ICE officers in Spanish from inside his car. Then, out of the blue, one of the officers went all Hulk on the vehicle’s back window with a sledgehammer before yanking Méndez out.
A government lawyer apparently stayed mum as Judge Ostrom dropped the mic on Thursday. Sniffin told the Globe that in her 27 years of being a legal eagle, she has never seen anything like this before. “This was a month of injustice. Their silence is telling,” she said.
People were scratching their heads over why Méndez got the cuffs slapped on him since the officers were supposedly looking for a dude named “Antonio,” who lives on a different floor in their building. Ortiz and the kiddo scored asylum in February 2024 after fleeing violence in Guatemala. According to the paper, under federal immigration law, her hubby could be eligible for derivative asylee status.
Sniffin spilled the beans to the Globe that Méndez gave his fingerprints to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Since his arrest, Méndez has been cooling his heels at the Strafford County Department of Corrections in Dover, N.H. After Thursday’s ruling, it’s a big mystery as to when he’ll be walking free. But in a separate civil suit, a New Hampshire federal judge put their foot down and ordered the Trump administration to give a heads-up 72 hours before moving him anywhere.
“We don’t have any problems with this country. It’s fine for [immigration officials] to do their job but not unjustly like they did with my husband,” Ortiz told the Globe.
Morgan Rousseau is a free-range writer for Boston.com, where she dishes on all things local and regional. Keep up with the Today newsletter and get the lowdown on how to kickstart your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
