Abuses documentedDenial of hearingunder Due processDenial of due process in immigration enforcementunder Due processActorsShana Chen (Immigration Judge, Newark Immigration Court)U.S. Department of Justice (Executive Office for Immigration Review)On February 11, 2026, Immigration Judge Shana Chen denied bond to Elmer Gonzalez Altamirano at a bond hearing that U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo had ordered six days earlier. Gonzalez Altamirano, a Mexican citizen who had lived in the United States for 20 years with no criminal record, worked as a restaurant cook in the Bronx and supported a family of U.S. citizens, was arrested by ICE on January 29 and held at the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark. On February 5 the federal court held that his detention without a bond hearing was unlawful and ordered an individualized hearing within seven days. His attorney, Nora Searle of the Bronx Defenders, had entered her appearance in all of his immigration proceedings on February 5, but received no notice that a bond hearing had been scheduled. The case had been transferred from the Varick Street Immigration Court in New York, and a supervisor told her on the morning of the hearing that the New Jersey court had no record of her appearance and that she had to file it again. When she joined Chen's virtual courtroom and asked for time to submit evidence, the DHS attorney urged her to withdraw the bond request. Chen said the court's deadline was the next day, that she did not have time to wait for the evidence, and that because counsel would not withdraw the request she was denying bond for failure to meet the burden of proof. Chen stated that Gonzalez Altamirano had been served notice on February 6; he received the notice by mail on February 12, the day after the hearing. Chen, a former assistant U.S. attorney appointed in 2019, sits on the Newark Immigration Court, which is part of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review. Documented identified this hearing as one of four in which Chen accused lawyers of wasting her time and then rushed to a decision that denied bond or forced a bond request to be withdrawn, each of which a federal judge later found unfair. Chen did not respond to Documented's request for comment. An EOIR spokesperson declined to comment on individual decisions, saying in a statement that immigration judges are independent adjudicators. Updates 2026-03-25 — Federal judge found hearing fundamentally unfair, ordered release [1, 2] Judge Cox Arleo ruled that "no actual bond hearing occurred" and that the proceeding before Chen was "fundamentally unfair." She found that the lack of notice was the government's fault, not counsel's, and that Chen had used the court's seven-day deadline "as a sword" to deny time to submit evidence. Declining to order a second hearing because she had "no faith" it would be conducted fairly, she ordered Gonzalez Altamirano released by 10 a.m. on March 26 and barred the government from detaining him under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b). According to Documented, he was released at 7:55 a.m. on March 26. Why we recorded thisDue process guarantees a person held in government detention a real opportunity to be heard and to present evidence before a neutral decision maker. A federal judge ordered an individualized bond hearing for Elmer Gonzalez Altamirano, and Immigration Judge Shana Chen denied bond without considering any evidence after refusing counsel time to file it, even though the notice failure lay with the government. The federal court found that no actual bond hearing occurred. This archive records the hearing because a proceeding that exists only to check a box turns a court-ordered safeguard against unlawful detention into a formality. SourcesGonzalez Altamirano v. Cabezas, No. 26-1168 (MCA), Memorandum & Order (D.N.J. Mar. 25, 2026) — U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (via CourtListener)primaryaccessed September 25, 2026An Immigration Judge Rushed Bond Decisions. Federal Judges Say She Violated Due Process. — Documentedinvestigativeaccessed September 25, 2026Newark Immigration Court — Executive Office for Immigration Reviewprimaryaccessed September 25, 2026 Receive the daily digest by email One email each morning with every entry filed the day before. Free. No tracking, no ads. Unsubscribe anytime.