15 immigrants released from custody after Idaho raid. What the judge said
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a mother of three U.S. citizens during the FBI and ICE raid at a Wilder racetrack, according to court filings.
The mother had lived in the U.S. for 21 years and had an active visa petition for permanent residence. A second arrested immigrant came to the U.S. last year and has a work permit and a pending asylum application, with a 2027 hearing on the docket.
They were both detained for a month in the Elmore County Detention Center after the Oct. 19 raid.
Now they’ve been released. In a flurry of nearly identical orders Wednesday, Idaho’s Senior U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered the release of 15 immigrants picked up during the Wilder raid.
In the past, immigrants already in the U.S. whom ICE detained would have been entitled to an immigration court hearing, according to Oregon immigration lawyer Casey Parsons. In the hearing, the government would try to show if they were a flight risk or a danger and whether they should remain locked up. The immigrants who were in the U.S. had due-process rights, regardless of their citizenship status, according to court filings.
But as part of the Trump administration’s hardening attitude towards immigrants, his administration has been pushing for mandatory detention for all immigrants who entered the U.S. without permission, Winmill said in court filings.
Only two judges among over 100 have sided with the government in federal cases challenging its expansion of mandatory detention, Winmill said in court filings. He said the constitutional right of due process applies to everyone within the U.S., not just citizens.
“Dozens of district courts across the nation – with more each day – have rejected DHS’s expansion of … mandatory detention to noncitizens already residing here,” Winmill wrote in the 15 decisions, one for each detainee. DHS stands for the Department of Homeland Security. “This Court joins the overwhelming majority.”
Homeland Security says ‘activist judge’ frees ‘lawbreakers’
Winmill’s ruling drew condemnation from the Trump administration.
“Now, an activist judge is ordering lawbreakers to roam free,” a spokesperson for Homeland Security, which includes ICE, told the Idaho Statesman by email. “This is just yet another example of activist judges attempting to obstruct President Trump from delivering on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of illegal aliens.”
At the raid, hundreds of law enforcement officers disrupted the final horse race of the season, detaining and zip-tying attendees, including some children. Law enforcement arrested four people for alleged illegal gambling, with a fifth arrested the next day. Of those five, four have been released from detention.
ICE arrested 105 immigrants, although some were legally in the U.S. Human rights activists have criticized the raid, saying families were torn apart and the operation sparked fear in the community.
Of the 15 whose cases came before Winmill, many had no criminal history, according to the court filings. For two of the immigrants, Winmill listed past convictions: one for misdemeanor disturbing the peace and one for driving without privileges.
In every one of the 15 orders, Winmill said the government had shown no information that the immigrant was a danger or flight risk. Instead, he suggested ICE was bowing to President Donald Trump’s hardline tactics on immigration enforcement.
“Its only apparent interest in detaining Petitioner — which imposes additional fiscal and administrative burdens — is to fulfill an arrest quota of 3,000 immigration arrests per day set by the current administration,” Winmill wrote in multiple orders.
One of the immigrants picked up by agents at the Wilder FBI and ICE raid had been present in the U.S. for 35 years, according to court filings. He has two U.S. citizen children and a lawful permanent resident mother who suffered from an end-stage renal disease and who relied on her son, Winmill wrote.
His father had previously filed a visa petition for him in 1999 and he could yet become eligible for legal status, the judge wrote. It wasn’t clear from the order what happened, or didn’t, with the 1999 petition.
“This ruling is a major vindication of due process and the constitutional rights of people caught up in enforcement actions that sweep up more than just targeted suspects,” Parsons said in a news release. “The court recognized that detention without lawful justification violates fundamental liberties.”
The Homeland Security spokesperson said the administration would continue to “fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
