A federal judge appointed by President Joe Biden ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release a Dominican national from custody, a man who carries an Interpol Red Notice and is wanted for homicide in his home country, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose issued the order on April 28, directing ICE to free Bryan Rafael Gomez from detention in Rhode Island. DHS says Gomez is an illegal immigrant with a standing deportation order, an international arrest warrant tied to a murder case, and a Red Notice from Interpol. He has been wanted by Dominican authorities since January 2023, Breitbart News reported.
The ruling has drawn sharp criticism from DHS, which says the court order now prevents ICE from rearresting Gomez, leaving a man accused of homicide abroad free to walk American streets.
The sequence of events began on April 4, when the Worcester Police Department in Massachusetts arrested Gomez on charges of assault and battery. ICE agents lodged a detainer, and local police honored it. After Gomez’s release from jail on the local charges, ICE took him directly into federal custody.
That custody did not last long. On April 28, Judge DuBose ordered Gomez released. Fox News reported that DuBose ruled ICE had detained Gomez under the wrong legal authority, specifically, a statute meant for migrants apprehended at the border, rather than one applicable to an individual arrested by local police inside the United States. The judge found his detention unlawful on those grounds and said Gomez was entitled to a bond hearing rather than mandatory detention.
The distinction matters. ICE argued Gomez should be held without bond. DuBose disagreed, and her order effectively forced the agency to let him go.
The pattern of federal judges intervening to limit immigration enforcement has become a recurring flashpoint. In a separate case, a Maryland judge blocked the Trump administration’s effort to deport an individual to Liberia while rebuking DOJ conduct in the process.
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Lauren Bis did not mince words. On Thursday evening, Bis called DuBose “an activist judge” and framed the release as part of a broader pattern of judicial obstruction.
“Bryan Rafael Gomez is a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with an international warrant for homicide. An activist judge appointed by Joe Biden released this wanted murderer back into American communities.”
Bis described the ruling as “yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart President Trump’s mandate from the American people to remove criminal illegal aliens from our communities.”
The Department of Justice took a different posture. U.S. Attorney Charles C. Calenda issued a statement defending Judge DuBose, saying she did not know about the Dominican murder warrant when she signed the release order.
“As our recent filing in this matter makes clear, Judge DuBose did not have knowledge at the time of her ruling that Gomez was wanted by authorities in the Dominican Republic.”
That explanation raises its own questions. If federal prosecutors knew Gomez was wanted for homicide abroad, and DHS clearly did, why wasn’t that information before the judge when it mattered most? A filing made after the fact does little for public safety once the individual has already walked out of custody.
Judges across the country have increasingly inserted themselves into federal immigration enforcement. Just recently, a Biden-appointed judge halted the Trump administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopia, adding to a growing list of court orders restricting executive action on immigration.
The facts DHS has put on the record paint a stark picture. Gomez is not merely an illegal immigrant who overstayed a visa or crossed the border without papers. He has an active deportation order. He has an Interpol Red Notice, a formal request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition or similar legal action. And Dominican authorities want him for murder.
The New York Post reported that DuBose cited what she called “continuous unlawful detention” in ordering Gomez’s release. DHS says the court order now bars ICE from rearresting Gomez under the same authority, meaning the agency’s hands are tied unless another legal avenue opens.
Worcester police did their part. They arrested Gomez. They honored the ICE detainer. The system worked at the local level. It broke down in a federal courtroom.
The case also highlights a broader tension between local cooperation with ICE and jurisdictions that refuse to honor detainers. Records show that Cook County released over 400 jailed illegal immigrants despite ICE detainers in 2025. In Worcester, local police cooperated, and a federal judge undid their work anyway.
DuBose’s ruling turned on which detention statute ICE used. Fox News reported that the judge found ICE had relied on a provision designed for migrants apprehended at the border, not for someone arrested by local law enforcement inside the country. On that procedural basis, she ruled the detention unlawful and ordered Gomez freed.
The government’s position was that Gomez should be held under mandatory detention given his criminal history and the outstanding warrants. DuBose rejected that argument.
Whether ICE chose the wrong statute or whether the judge interpreted the law too narrowly is a question that may play out in further proceedings. But the immediate result is not in dispute: a man wanted for murder in another country is no longer in federal custody.
The case fits a pattern in which enforcement agencies have faced obstacles from courts and sanctuary policies alike, sometimes for years, before they can act on deportation orders.
Several important details remain unclear. What specific murder allegation do Dominican authorities have against Gomez? What steps, if any, is the government taking to bring the Interpol warrant and homicide information before the court now? Has Gomez remained free since April 28, or has any subsequent legal action changed his status?
The DOJ’s statement references a “recent filing” that apparently disclosed the Dominican warrant, but that filing came after DuBose’s order. Whether it will prompt a new hearing or a reversal remains to be seen.
And there is the broader question that cases like this force into the open: when a federal judge’s procedural ruling puts a man wanted for murder back on American streets, who bears the responsibility for what happens next?
Worcester police did their job. ICE agents did theirs. The system failed anyway, inside a courtroom, on a technicality, by a judge who didn’t even know the man in front of her was wanted for taking a life.
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