UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ) ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) ) v. ) Criminal Case No. 18-275 ) JAIME OMAR VASQUEZ-BENITEZ, ) Defendant. ) ) ) OPINION & ORDER Pending before the Court is defendant’s motion [19], which the Court construes as a motion to compel compliance with Judge Harvey’s order [7] setting conditions for defendant’s supervised release. The motion tasks the Court with striking the proper balance between the Judiciary’s power to order pretrial release of a person charged with illegal reentry under the Bail Reform Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3142, and the govemment’s concurrent ability to detain that person to effectuate his removal under the Immigration & Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1231. After considering the Bail Reform Act"s structure and reasoning from first principles, the Court holds that because the government has chosen to bring criminal charges against defendant, a judicial order under the Bail Reform Act provides the sole avenue for detaining defendant while the charges are pending. With the Court’s exclusive power comes the responsibility to assure defendant’s appearance in court and the safety of the community. See § 3142(0). A new indictment and new evidence requires the Court to determine whether circumstances have sufficiently changed to justify detaining defendant under the Bail Reform Act. To facilitate the Court’s reconsideration of defendant’s supervised release, the Court orders defendant to appear forthwith for further detention proceedings. I. Factual Background A month into defendant’s civil removal proceedings, the government filed a criminal complaint charging defendant with illegally reentering the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Customs officials transferred custody of defendant to the U.S. Marshals Service for a detention hearing before Judge Harvey, who released defendant pending trial. When Acting Chief Judge Boasberg denied the government’s request to revoke release, the Marshals transferred defendant back to customs officials for continued removal proceedings Several days later, defendant filed this motion, which the Court construes as a motion to compel compliance with Judge Harvey’s order for supervised release. The case was randomly reassigned to this Court after the grand jury returned an indictment. At arraignment, the government urged the Court to revisit defendant’s detention status in light of the indictment and new factual evidence. The Court deferred reconsidering defendant’s detention status until resolution of this motion. II. Discussion Defendant’s motion asks the Court to referee the incongruity between his current civil detention under the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) and this Court’s prior order under the Bail Reform Act (BM) releasing him pending his criminal trial. In Section II.A of its opinion, the Court concludes the BRA must control the custody of a defendant charged with illegal reentry, regardless of the government’s civil authority to hold him under the INA. But having resolved that tension, the Court is mindful of the need to properly wield its control. In Section II.B, considering the defendant’s newly returned indictment and the government’s recently discovered evidence, the Court decides to accept the BRA’s invitation ...
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