Feds Deport Immigrant After Court Orders His Release

Milwaukee Federal Courthouse. Photo by Mariiana Tzotcheva

An immigrant facing federal criminal charges for illegally entering the United States will no longer have to stand trial because the federal government has already deported him.

Adolfo Raul Sotelo-Munoz, 45, was arrested Thursday, Oct. 30 at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on an 18-year-old state warrant out of Brown County related to charges for driving without a license. He was arraigned in federal criminal court later that day on one count of illegally re-entering the country after deportation. Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries ordered his release from federal custody with GPS monitoring, pending the outcome of a trial scheduled for January next year. Within of two days of the arraignment, federal authorities deported him to Mexico.

Sotelo-Munoz is the latest immigrant arrested at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, and his case may reveal shifting tactics by federal authorities carrying out President Donald Trump‘s mass deportation policy and using local courthouses to make arrests.

Sotelo-Munoz has lived in the U.S. for at least two decades. His entire family lives in Milwaukee, including his mother. At the time of his arrest he was facing multiple misdemeanor domestic violence charges for battery and disorderly conduct. He was twice charged with the same misdemeanor offenses in 2024, but the charges were later dismissed.

Sotelo-Munoz has been deported twice before, according to federal law enforcement. He was first deported in 2007 and again in 2015. He sometimes uses an alias, Miguel Angel Munoz, according to federal court records.

The federal government, represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Farris Martini, asked the court to order Sotelo-Munoz detained, arguing he was a serious flight risk and a danger to the community. Dries found the government did not provide evidence meeting the burden for either claim supporting detention.

But on Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Sotelo-Munoz after Martini was informed of his deportation to Mexico “on or about Nov. 1.”

It remains unclear why Sotelo-Munoz was deported Saturday while still facing federal criminal charges. A spokesperson from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not respond to questions about the quick deportation.

However, under federal law, people that have been deported before, like Sotelo-Munoz, can be removed from the country under the previous deportation order without being brought before an immigration judge.

Federal law enforcement secured a criminal indictment against Sotelo-Munoz for illegal re-entry on Sept. 1. But federal agents did not get a signed judicial arrest warrant until Oct. 30, the day he was arrested at the county courthouse. He also was not arrested by federal agents.

Sotelo-Munoz was arrested by a Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office (MCSO) deputy. The deputy was apparently alerted to the existence of an active warrant for his arrest issued in Brown County in 2007. The deputy arrested him after his hearing. Brown County verified the warrant, but wasn’t interested in enforcing it, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office. Sotelo-Munoz was then handed over to Homeland Security Investigations agents there to arrest him on the federal judicial warrant.

Earlier this year, federal agents conducted operations at the courthouse without a judicial warrant or a criminal indictment. Instead, agents have waited outside of a court room for an immigrant, with plans to arrest them on an administrative removal warrant from ICE.

These arrests have drawn strong criticism from the local community and action by the Milwaukee County Board and local circuit court to develop a policy for responding to immigration arrests at the courthouse.

ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies have access to fingerprint databases maintained by local agencies, like the sheriff’s office. In previous cases, ICE was alerted to an immigrant’s presence in the country after they were arrested and fingerprinted at the Milwaukee County Jail.

Sotelo-Munos was arrested and taken into custody twice in 2024. On June 20, he was arrested and booked for the first time since the Trump administration took office.

Charge and Deport

While Sotelo-Munoz could be deported under a previous deportation order, his indictment and arraignment on criminal charges appear to follow a pattern of new federal government tactics for immigration enforcement described by one immigration attorney.

U.S. Attorneys bringing illegal re-entry charges against immigrants already subject to a deportation order is “a new wrench we are seeing for the first time,” said attorney Marc Christopher, of Christopher & De León. Defendants are told the criminal charges against them will be dropped if they don’t contest their removal from the country, he said

“Here is why they are doing this. People with a prior removal order can claim a fear of returning to their home country—if a judge agrees, the person can assert a ‘withholding of removal’ claim,” Christopher said. “However, to dissuade people from doing that, they are charging them with the criminal ‘re-entry’ charge stating that they will drop the charge if they don’t assert their withholding claim and accept removal.”

Immigration Arrests at County Courthouse

Federal agents arrested Eduardo Flores-Ruiz at the courthouse in April on an administrative warrant. A criminal indictment for illegal re-entry was not secured until weeks later in May. The arrest set off a legal and political maelstrom when the FBI arrested Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan on charges she allegedly obstructed an ICE operation and concealed Florez-Ruiz from arrest.

When agents showed up outside her courtroom on April 18, Dugan allegedly asked if they had a judicial warrant and directed them to Chief Judge Carl Ashley‘s office. The federal government alleges Dugan adjourned Flores-Ruiz’s case and sent him out of the courtroom through a door used by jurors. He was arrested outside the courthouse shortly after this. Dugan’s attorneys have repeatedly rejected the government’s allegations as she fights her case in federal court.

The courthouse immigration arrests have been criticized for jeopardizing trust and potentially chilling local participation in the justice system. The Milwaukee County Board passed a resolution opposing “unlawful” ICE actions at the courthouse and asking the county administration for a policy governing how county employees at the courthouse interact with ICE when the agency shows up to make an arrest. A finalized policy has not been released.

Attorney Ruby De Leon was in court Thursday with Sotelo-Munoz, representing him in the state domestic violence case. It was the final pre-trial hearing and everything was going normally. Then, as the hearing concluded, the courtroom deputy arrested her client.

She followed them into the hall and watched the deputy take him into the elevator used to transport defendants in custody. She saw two plain clothes officers get on the elevator with Sotelo-Munoz and the deputy. “I figured it would have been ICE, then.”

It’s unusual for someone to be arrested on a warrant that old, De Leon said. “It seems the Brown County warrant was used as a pretext to get the sheriffs to assist with the arrest.”

After that she didn’t know what happened to her client, until he showed up in the ICE database of immigrants being held in detention in Dodge County, which is used by ICE for immigrant detention in Wisconsin. Then, he disappeared from the system. De Leon did not know what happened to her client until she learned of his deportation Tuesday afternoon.

After the arrest of Sotelo-Munoz, the MCSO released a statement clarifying its role in the arrest. The statement maintained the MCSO is not part of the ICE 287(g) program, which authorizes local law enforcement to carry out immigration arrests and detentions under administrative ICE warrants. Local law enforcement must, however, enforce federal judicial warrants the same as any other criminal warrant, according to the sheriff’s office.

Critics of immigration arrests at the courthouse warned they would make immigrants fear visiting the courthouse. That fear has come to pass.

Many of De Leon’s clients’ status as immigrants leaves them “vulnerable,” she told Urban Milwaukee. And they have expressed fear about showing up for court. Sotelo-Munoz was one of them.

The morning of his hearing, De Leon called to remind Sotelo-Munoz he needed to appear in court that day. “He asked me if ICE was at the courthouse.”