captimesmadison A Madison restaurant owner detained by federal immigration agents in January has cleared two major legal hurdles necessary for release, but he remains locked in an Indiana detention center where his wife and children cannot visit him. Noel Quintana, owner of Señor Machetes restaurant in downtown Madison, was detained by federal immigration agents about 80 days ago on Jan. 24. Federal immigration judges issued an order to terminate his removal proceedings and granted him bond, meaning Quintana should be allowed to post bail. On Tuesday evening, the Department of Homeland Security issued an intent to appeal his bond case, his lawyer said. The intent to appeal effectively keeps Quintana detained. Federal agents detained Quintana, 50, at O’Hare International Airport after he flew back to the United States from Mexico. He was held at the Clay County Jail, a facility in western Indiana, until early April, when he was moved to the Miami Correctional Facility two hours away. According to his lawyer, Kate Drury, he was detained under Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which typically applies to arriving aliens to the United States. Quintana is originally from Mexico and has been a legal U.S. resident since 2002. “The government labeled Noel an arriving alien. The government pretended that he didn’t have 33 years of physical presence in the United States,” said Drury. The DHS used a prior felony conviction for cocaine possession from 2006 as the basis for its request to have Quintana removed, “claiming he’s inadmissible for having committed a crime involving moral turpitude,” Drury said. Moral turpitude is a legal term that generally refers to crimes that violate community norms. Quintana, who opened Señor Machetes in 2019, pleaded no contest to the charge and served a three-year probation sentence. Drury applied for a full pardon on behalf of Quintana for the 20-year-old crime, and @govevers granted the pardon on Feb. 13. “The pardon ... makes the conviction as though it never existed. It should have the effect of wiping clean the slate and not justifying the removal action,” Drury said. ➡️ Read more from @ashleyisacommonname at captimes.com. View all 13 comments