ICE seizes 77-year-old Omar again after judge orders release

ICE seizes – Less than two weeks after a federal judge ordered ICE to release a Louisiana grandfather following a heart attack in custody, ICE seized 77-year-old Akram Mahmoud Omar again—then moved to put him on a deportation flight the next morning. A judge ordered immedi

When Akram Mahmoud Omar walked out of ICE custody after a judge ordered him freed. his family believed the ordeal had finally paused. Then. 10 days later. ICE showed up at Omar’s home in Bossier City and took him again—despite an order telling the agency not to re-detain or remove him while an emergency motion was pending.

On Monday. Judge Brian Jackson of Louisiana’s Middle District ordered Omar’s immediate release from ICE custody and warned ICE not to re-detain or remove him during the pendency of Omar’s Emergency Motion to Enforce the Court’s May 29 order. In that Monday order, Jackson wrote: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’) shall IMMEDIATELY RELEASE Omar from ICE custody. ” and added. “ICE shall not RE-DETAIN or REMOVE Omar from the United States during the pendency of Omar’s Emergency Motion to Enforce the Court’s May 29 Order.”.

The case began with a hard rebuke. Less than two weeks earlier. in a scathing ruling. a federal judge ordered ICE to release the Louisiana grandfather who suffered a heart attack while in ICE custody. Omar. 77. had lived in the United States for 50 years. but ICE abruptly seized him during a routine check-in last October and soon sent him to “Camp 57. ” the ICE detention camp inside the notorious Angola. Louisiana. state prison.

The habeas petition Omar filed in April said the stress of poor conditions there contributed to his heart attack. On May 29, the federal judge found ICE violated Omar’s constitutional rights and ordered his immediate release.

But on Monday—just 10 days after his release—ICE seized Omar again and tried to whisk the still-recovering man toward deportation. Omar’s lawyer, Ken Mayeaux, said ICE planned to move him onto a deportation flight the next morning.

Mayeaux filed an emergency motion after the new arrest. The motion argued ICE’s actions amounted to contempt of the court’s prior order. “Petitioner’s re-detention and planned removal are in direct contempt of this Court’s prior order,” it reads. The filing also alleged the government misled Omar’s family: ICE “lied to Mr. Omar. telling him and his family that he did not need to report to ICE/ERO” until December. but now “Respondent is racing to remove petitioner within hours.”.

ICE spokesperson Angelina Vicknair said in a statement that, “ICE complies with all court orders, and any allegation that a judge’s orders were not followed are categorically false.”

The dispute is playing out against a backdrop in which federal courts have repeatedly found ICE in conflict with judicial directives. according to immigration attorneys. Bridget Pranzatelli. an attorney with the National Immigration Project and familiar with the case. said the agency’s conduct reflects “a level of cruelty and disrespect for federal courts” that she described as “the rule. not the exception.” She said Jackson’s earlier decision was “well-reasoned” and specifically mandated protections for “this very elderly. very sick man. ” but ICE ignored it.

Pranzatelli also said the case fits a broader pattern of extreme measures directed at Palestinians. Omar was born in Palestine before the formation of the state of Israel. In 1975, he moved to the United States as a lawful permanent resident.

Omar’s recent medical history has become central to the fight over timing. After his release last month, Omar attended his regular ICE check-in on the first Wednesday in June. His next check-in would be in December, he was told. Then last Friday, he received a letter instructing him to report to an ICE office on Monday morning, June 8.

Mayeaux emailed the ICE office in Bossier City, where Omar lives, warning immigration officials that “any attempted removal of Mr. Omar in June would be in direct contempt of the Court Order. ” according to a copy of the email included with the motion. “I am instructing my client not to report as requested.”.

Instead, on Monday, ICE came to Omar’s home and arrested him again.

Omar’s wife called Mayeaux immediately after the arrest. Only hours later, ICE told Omar’s family he was being taken nearly two hours away to an ICE staging area for deportation flights and would be put on a plane the next morning to Israel.

By early afternoon, Mayeaux had filed the emergency motion. Omar’s health was the central concern, the motion said. He is still recovering from his April heart attack and open-heart surgery. Mayeaux wrote that Omar’s wife told the arresting ICE officer she planned to take Omar to a cardiologist later that day and that he could not move well.

The filing said a doctor was prepared to testify that the roughly 14-hour flight without medical clearance raised serious health concerns, “if in fact he survives the flight.”

Mayeaux also described the emotional toll on the family after the second arrest. “They’re all completely traumatized,” he said. He said he had suspected ICE’s letter would mean trouble, but he still struggled to understand what followed. “I couldn’t believe they would be so heartless and cruel as to do this to a 77-year-old man who’s ill. I just didn’t.”.

The earlier judge’s order described why Omar had been in detention in the first place. Omar had been in the United States for half a century when ICE picked him up in Mississippi during a routine check-in last fall. There was no readily apparent reason cited on the record for the seizure. ICE had long known about two minor. nonviolent convictions—one from 2005 and one from 2022—but Omar had lived in the U.S. for years under ICE supervision and had complied with required immigration check-ins.

In the May release order, Judge Jackson said that despite the “undisputed facts,” ICE considered Omar both a “flight risk” and “a ‘priority for removal.” Jackson also wrote that Omar had been held in ICE detention since October 28, 2025—seven full months at the time—“with no end in sight.”

Jackson ruled that ICE had to follow its own rules before deporting Omar. The agency needed to provide advance notice, a reason, an opportunity for an orderly departure, and an informal interview to respond to ICE’s deportation efforts.

The May order said ICE did not serve Omar’s counsel with notice until he was already back in ICE custody. “The Notice also makes a mockery of the Court’s Order,” Mayeaux’s June 8 emergency motion said. The motion alleged it was “only after he was taken back into custody — in contravention of the Court’s Order — that he was informed of the existence of the travel document and of his imminent removal.” It further alleged that even then ICE didn’t give Omar the opportunity to speak directly with counsel.

The court also directed ICE to facilitate communication with Omar’s doctors and family “to ensure the most efficient and effective continuation of his required medical treatment upon his release.”

The emergency motion says ICE appeared to violate most of Jackson’s orders when agents re-detained him. Even as ICE SUVs showed up at his door to bring him to the Bossier City field office. the agents continued to tell Omar he was there only for a routine check-in. The motion alleged that it was not until less than 24 hours before the flight that family members were told Omar was being deported.

By around 7 p.m. Monday, ICE returned Omar to his home. His family was relieved, but shaken.

For now, the fight over whether ICE followed the court’s instructions remains at the center of the case—tied to Omar’s health, his family’s confusion and fear, and the judge’s repeated insistence that the agency stop pushing ahead while legal steps are still underway.

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