Illinois woman granted bond after 15-month ‘unreasonably prolonged’ stay in ICE detention facility

A federal judge Friday ordered the release of a Round Lake mother and green card holder who has been in ICE custody for more than a year, ruling that her time spent in detention “had become unreasonably prolonged and violated her due process rights.”

U.S. District Judge Angelica Powers of the Memphis Immigration Court in Memphis, Tennessee, released Beata Siemionkowicz on bond, allowing the 57-year-old Polish citizen to return to the Chicago area and reunite with her daughters, Gabi, 22, and Claudia, 26.

If the Department of Homeland Security does not appeal Powers’ decision, Siemionkowicz is allowed to leave Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky, where she has been housed since August 2025.

“I’m a bit surprised, just given how immigration court can feel rigged against the immigrant in this administration,” said Hirsh Joshi, an attorney with ACLU of Illinois, which is representing her. “But I’m not surprised that Beata found a sympathetic ear, and that the circumstances surrounding her arrests were taken into account in her favor.”

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment.

Siemionkowicz’s release from ICE custody would not be an end to her immigration battle. The green card holder still faces deportation to Poland, as ordered on Dec. 9, 2025. But bond allows Siemionkowicz to fight her immigration legal battle from outside the walls of a detention center and at home with her family.

Siemionkowicz entered the United States legally in 1995, moving to Illinois from her hometown of Bialystok, Poland, according to court records. She has been a permanent resident with a green card since 2003 and, as a divorced, single mom of two, built her life in Round Lake as a commercial cleaner and later a hospice caregiver.

That life was abruptly halted the afternoon of Aug. 2, 2025 when two masked ICE agents in civilian clothes arrested Siemionkowicz in her daughter’s backyard. She was gardening, according to her daughters, who previously spoke to the Tribune.

Agents arrested Siemionkowicz for her criminal record of misdemeanor retail theft from Jewel in September 2005 and Kohl’s in October 2011, according to an ICE spokesperson. The agency also claimed she forged documents to obtain immigration benefits in 2001, before her green card status.

According to her daughters and Lake County court records, Siemionkowicz paid her dues years ago through fines and a period of supervised release. The sisters say their mom stole kids’ clothes for them during an especially hard time after her divorce.

That long-ago Chicagoland criminal record, which ICE considers crimes involving “moral turpitude,” is what classified Siemionkowicz as a mandatory detainee, a group of immigrants who are not legally entitled to a bond hearing, according to records.

Powers ruled Friday, however, that Siemionkowicz’s misdemeanors, now more than a decade old, were not substantial enough evidence that she is a danger to society or someone who should remain detained pending removal from the United States.

“The respondent’s extensive family ties, long term residence, homeownership, employment, community support weigh substantially in her favor,” Powers wrote. “The court finds that the department has failed to establish that the respondent is a danger or flight risk.”

The path toward bond began several months ago, when Siemionkowicz filed a petition for habeas corpus in early September. This week, Nov. 3, U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell in Kentucky granted that request, in part because the judge found that her detention violated her due process, and ordered that Siemionkowicz, 57, be granted a bond hearing. That hearing began Thursday.

“This is one of the few times in which someone who has been deemed to be mandatorily detained has won this type of additional bond hearing and potential release in this district,” Joshi said. “This is a case that is emblematic of a larger problem that the Supreme Court has already agreed that it wants to hear.”

Siemionkowicz’s successful petition for a writ of habeas corpus is a promising sign for other mandatory ICE detainees in the Kentucky district asking for a bond hearing after a prolonged detention, most of whom never were afforded an initial hearing, Joshi said. And Siemionkowicz’s release from detention is even more promising, he said.

In an email earlier this week, an ICE spokesperson said the agency makes “custody determinations daily, on a case-by-case basis in accordance with U.S. law, and various factors to ensure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United States. Despite a historic number of injunctions, DHS is working rapidly and overtime to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination — home.”

In October, the Supreme Court agreed to review a Trump administration policy denying bond hearings for immigrants as the government carries out a sweeping crackdown.

The justices will consider whether immigrants who have been living in the U.S. have a right to a hearing to determine if they should remain detained while challenging their possible deportation.

Joshi said the high court’s decision could have an effect on immigrants like Siemionkowicz, who have been detained for long periods of time.

“That’s not to say this case in particular will go to the Supreme Court, only to say that this is a product of something that’s been happening over the last few years,” Joshi said. “We’re soon to see if people like Beata can get this kind of bond hearing at all.”

This decision comes just in time. After her habeas petition was filed, her daughter Gabi Siemionkowicz told the Tribune that her mother was moved to a different, more secure medical wing within the Campbell County Detention Center where the conditions are “way worse” than her previous cell.

Conditions inside the Campbell County Detention Center made national headlines in August when U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, from Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District, and other Democrats opened an investigation into the “inhumane conditions” of the northern Kentucky facility following a congressional oversight visit the month prior.

“It’s pretty jarring to see, on the ground, how they’re treating people at Campbell County,” Joshi said. “My only hope is to get Beata out as soon as we can.”

akiehl@chicagotribune.com

The Associated Press contributed.