It is not uncommon for good people to occasionally make a mistake and end up being arrested, often for a relatively minor criminal charge. In most cases, an individual can be released from jail if he or she posts a bond set by the judge in the criminal matter, or by pleading guilty to the crime and serving an agreed-upon sentence. For an undocumented immigrant, however, an arrest is much more serious, because it can make him or her vulnerable to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold.

  • Related Post: What is an ICE Hold and How It Does Work?

ICE and Criminal Charges

When ICE takes custody of an undocumented immigrant, it normally is to place him or her deportation proceedings. When an undocumented immigrant is being held in a local jail on a criminal charge, ICE may issue a written demand to the jail to hold him or her. The purpose of this ICE hold is to ensure that the individual is not simply released from state custody, but, rather, is held by the jail until ICE can take the individual into custody. An ICE hold, however, only can last 48 hours.

What this means is that once an undocumented immigrant posts a bond in the state criminal case, or serves the sentence that he or she has agreed to in a plea bargain, he or she still will not be free to go home. Rather, ICE will take the person into custody and place him or her in an immigration detention facility. In some cases, the undocumented immigrant will have the opportunity to post a bond in the immigration case. In other cases, however, there will be no bond set for you; you would have to remain in detention until a judge sets a bond and you or someone else can pay the bond.

As a result, if your undocumented immigrant husband is arrested, and you pay the bond set in the state criminal case, this doesn’t necessarily mean that your husband will be released from custody. Instead, you may need to wait until ICE takes him into custody and sets an immigration bond. If you can pay the immigration bond, then your husband can get out of the immigration detention center. If your husband is subject to mandatory detention, however, then no bond will be set. This means that he will have to stay in ICE custody until his deportation case is over.

Call (510) 491-0291 for a consultation with an Oakland Immigration Attorney

If ICE has detained a loved one, contact an experienced immigration attorney at Landerholm Immigration, A.P.C. as quickly as possible can be essential to securing his or her release and fighting deportation. Taking steps to fix an immigration problem from the outset is often much simpler than waiting until the last minute and attempting to remedy the situation. Call Landerholm Immigration, A.P.C., at (510) 491-0291, and learn what we can do to help you through this situation.

Contact us online or call (510) 491-0291 for a free case review with an immigration attorney in Oakland at Landerholm Immigration.