Judge orders release of activist awaiting deportation

NEW YORK — A federal judge, calling an imprisoned immigration rights activists’ treatment “unnecessarily cruel,” ordered his immediate release Monday and said people subject to deportation deserve “the freedom to say goodbye.” Applause erupted in a packed Manhattan courtroom after U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest announced prominent activist Ravi Ragbir must be freed. Ragbir’s wife, immigration attorney Amy Gottlieb, said outside court she was moved “by the judge’s powerful language about what it means to live in a democracy.” “It’s been a really hard couple of weeks, and I’ve been really disheartened and disillusioned. His lawyer, Alina Das, said in court papers that Scott Mechkowski, deputy field office director at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office where Ragbir was detained, told her Jan. 8 that he felt “resentment” about Ragbir’s last scheduled check-in on March 9. She also said Ragbir and those like him nationwide should be allowed “the freedom to hug one’s spouse and children, the freedom to organize the myriad of human affairs that collect over time.” “There is, and ought to be in this great country, the freedom to say goodbye,” the judge said, noting he had lived the life of a redeemed man for the last decade.