27 May, 2017
Samour called Lima-Marin "a valuable member of the community" who "was impeccably law-abiding" during his time out of custody, and wrote that putting him back in prison disregarded "everything that had transpired between April 2008 and January 2014".
A Colorado man whose 98-year prison term was cut short by a judge has been detained by immigration officials just as he was set to be released.
Hickenlooper said Wednesday that the Department of Corrections was required by law to release Lima-Marin to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The agency is working to deport him to Cuba, a country he left as a toddler on the 1980 Mariel boat lift.
Cubans convicted after that agreement, such as Lima-Marin, are not automatically accepted by Cuba because of that deal.
People who can not be deported have been allowed to remain and live freely in the United States but check in regularly with immigration officials.
Lima-Marin started his prison term in April 2000, after being found guilty of multiple counts of kidnapping, burglary, aggravated robbery and use of a deadly weapon during commission of a crime. He was released, improperly, in 2008, but was rearrested in 2014, when authorities realized the mistake.
The Colorado Department of Corrections said in a statement that Lima-Marin had been moved from the Fremont Correctional Facility in Cañon City to the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center in preparation for his release, and that a Criminal Justice Information Services review determined he might have an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer. But ICE can request that an inmate suspected of an immigration violation be held after their release from jail or prison under a form referred to as a hold or a detainer.
An error in prison paperwork said Lima-Marin was to serve his sentences concurrently instead of consecutively.
After a decade of serving time behind bars, Lima-Marin wound up being freed in error.
According to the Post, the USA does not control whether or not Cuba will accept a deportee, so it is possible that Lima-Marin, 38, could spend up to six months in ICE custody and then be put on an order of supervision that would require him to check in regularly with ICE authorities and possibly wear a Global Positioning System ankle bracelet.
President Donald Trump has been critical of Obama's efforts to improve relations with Cuba.
"From there, there have been a series of federal policies that have changed including the wet-foot-dry-foot policy", Martinez says.
The Colorado Legislature approved a nonbinding resolution earlier this month urging Gov. John Hickenlooper to grant Lima-Marin clemency.
"We can't imagine the emotional roller coast this family has endured". Lima-Marin was out of prison for six years, he said, and ICE did not do anything about his legal status until now. "And now you're punishing them for something that they didn't have anything to do with", said Rene Lima-Marin. He remains in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials "pending his removal to Cuba" - though deportation isn't necessarily a sure thing.
"His case was unique in that sense", said his attorney Kimberly Diego.
State lawmakers in the recently completed session passed a bill calling for Lima-Marin's release.
