Walter Acuna-Cruz is a Guatemalan citizen, now aged 21, and is an illegal alien in Minnesota now on his fourth habeas corpus case seeking release from ICE detention.
I attended (via Zoom) a video federal court hearing for Acuna’s latest habeas case, and he is the subject of a final order of removal, dated November 13, 2025. The only obstacle to his immediate deportation back to Guatemala is the endless litigation filed on his behalf in federal district court and the 8th circuit court of appeals by a team of lawyers.
Today’s case was File No. 26-cv-1393, and the file has already accumulated some 38 documents in the 15 days it has been active. Previous Files include:
- 25-cv-1915, filed April 30, 2025, denied, appealed to 8th circuit, denied on appeal
- 25-cv-4376, filed November 19, 2025, denied, reconsidered, denied
- 25-cv-4720, filed December 19, 2025, merged into current case
Mr. Acuna appears to have caught a break with the assignment of his current case to Judge Susan Nelson (Obama appointee). Previous judges denied Acuna’s petitions and he has already accumulated one Appeals Court defeat.
[By the way, even though every case is captioned Acuna Cruz v, whomever, his last name is not allowed to be uttered out loud in court.]
Judging by today’s hearing, Judge Nelson appears to be searching for a way to release Acuna before he can be deported. Recall that Acuna is facing a final order of removal. Judge Nelson concedes that she does not have to power to overturn the decision of the Immigration Court. Instead, she is searching for a workaround, where she can rule that Acuna will somehow win, someday, in some forum, making his continued detention unlawful.
To that end, Nelson (over the objections of the government) allowed the “testimony” of a third member of the Acuna legal team, characterized as “expert testimony” rather than legal arguments.
This third lawyer spent roughly 90 minutes laying out a new legal theory to overcome Acuna’s past defeats in Immigration Court, federal district court, and federal appeals court.
Today’s habeas hearing went some three hours and only got through about half the agenda. It will resume Thursday, March 5. at 9 am.
As always, representatives of the federal government will present their case while facing contempt of court citations, including jail time and cash fines for “violating” past orders of Judge Nelson. Keep in mind that no judge (not even Nelson) has ever ordered Acuna’s release and he has remained in ICE custody for more than a year. He was picked up by ICE following a drunk driving conviction.
Meanwhile, a different federal judge (Jeffrey Bryan, Biden appointee) has scheduled 28 (not a typo) habeas cases for a simultaneous court hearing on Tuesday, March 3, beginning at 10 am.
Here, Judge Bryan is threatening criminal contempt (jail time) against government lawyers for not moving fast enough in the two-dozen-plus habeas cases, all filed in 2026, among the 1,018 habeas cases filed so far this year in Minnesota.
So government lawyers will spend a whole day explaining themselves, rather than working to fulfill judges’ orders in these and other cases.
Then they will be sent to jail, where they will be unavailable to meet any judges’ orders, thus allowing detainees to win every case by default.
In other news, Artemio Martin-Martin became the latest addition to our ever-growing roster of Minnesota Men.
In early January, Martin was indicted on one count of illegal re-entry of a previously deported alien, a felony criminal charge. A federal judge signed an arrest warrant for Martin on January 6. He made an initial court appearance on Thursday.
The name Artemio Martin-Martin matches the name of a man, age 29, convicted of drunk driving in a March 2024 incident in Worthington, Nobles County. Modelo appears to have been the beverage of choice. A reading of 0.25 percent BAC was recorded.
Martin appears to have gotten onto ICE’s radar after he was picked up on a failure-to-appear warrant in November 2025.
Martin also has two prior convictions for drunk driving, both in Nobles County. A January 2018 drunk driving arrest appears to have led to Martin’s February 2018 deportation. BAC 0.186 percent.
Martin was back in America in December 2022, picked up on Christmas Day on drunk driving case No. 2 (BAC 0.26 percent). Too much Christmas cheer, perhaps? Around 2:30 in the afternoon, Martin was found asleep at the wheel, with his car stuck in a snowbank.
The police report in that case includes the following detail,
When the male woke, he identified himself as Jacob David Gillam,
(DOB:12/10/1993), with a Minnesota ID card.
Martin is due back in federal court on Tuesday, March 3 for a detention hearing. He is currently being held in the federal lockup at the Sherburne County jail.
