Lawyers for a prominent Haitian national held at Krome Detention Center since September are accusing immigration authorities of violating a federal judge’s order after they transferred him to a detention facility in Mississippi.

Dimitri Vorbe’s transfer was in direct violation of a federal court’s order prohibiting his removal from the Southern District of Florida while he’s seeking judicial review of his detention, his lawyers said in an expedited motion filed on Monday. They want the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Miami field office “to show cause as to why the Court should not hold them in contempt for violation” of the court’s orders.

Vorbe is reportedly one of several detainees who has been transferred from the west Miami-Dade detention facility due to potentially threatening brush fires. More than 20,000 acres were burned after a brush fire broke out between Southwest 120th Avenue and 137th Ave during a lightning during a thunderstorm. Krome detention facility is at Southwest 182nd Avenue and 12th Street.

How many detainees were moved is unclear, but lawyers argue that while some were sent to the Federal Detention Center in Miami and other South Florida facilities, Vorbe was instead sent to Mississippi.

“They did so without so much as providing notice to counsel or substantively responding to a request to rectify the violation,” the motion said.

Lawyers and advocates critical of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants say authorities routinely transfer detainees at the Krome Detention Center, mainly because of overcrowded conditions. Some end up at the Miami Federal Detention Center, which normally holds criminal defendants awaiting trial or sentencing.

A spokesman for ICE in Miami declined to comment about Vorbe’s case but did say that ICE “takes the health and safety of those in our custody as our top priority.”

“Over the weekend, out of an abundance of caution, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started evacuating the Krome Service Processing Center due to brush fires burning around the detention center. Detainees have been transferred to other ICE facilities in and outside the State of Florida,” the spokesperson said.

In their motion, Vorbe’s lawyers said that in addition to emails and a phone call to government lawyers after learning of the potential transfer, Vorbe repeatedly informed detention officials that a judicial order prohibited his transfer out of the Southern District of Florida.

“Furthermore, Mr. Vorbe advised that other individuals at Krome North Service Processing Center were transferred to other immigration detention facilities within the Southern District of Florida,” the lawyers said. “The Court should find the Respondents in contempt and exercise its broad discretion to fashion equitable relief in the form of Mr. Vorbe’s release from ICE custody, or, at a minimum, his immediate transfer back to a detention facility in the Southern District of Florida.”

His lawyers, as well as close family members, all reside in the Miami area. He is requesting a ruling on his motion no later than June 30. Vorbe, they also noted, has an in-person hearing in his immigration case scheduled for July 10 in court at the Krome facility.

Who is Dimitri Vorbe?

A high-profile businessman who ran afoul of Haiti’s late president Jovenel Moïse, Vorbe was taken into ICE custody after being accused by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio of acting against the foreign policy interests of the United States by allegedly consorting with Haitian gangs — a position the Trump administration says is not reviewable by the federal courts.

This month Vorbe’s lawyers, who have denied the allegations against him, appeared in Miami federal court seeking either his immediate release or a bond hearing, arguing that his prolonged detention warrants judicial review. U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles has yet to rule on the request.

Vorbe, 52, first told his family on Sunday that authorities intended to transfer him to a different facility. His lawyers reached out to the assistant U.S. attorneys and Department of Homeland Security counsel reminding them of the prohibition on his transfer from the Southern District of Florida.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ghannam reportedly said he was “unaware of the transfer” and would contact the ICE field office to find out the plan for Vorbe’s transfer, the lawyers said.

Despite the efforts, he was moved anyway and at approximately 9:50 p.m. showed up in the ICE Detainee Locator at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi.

In response to Vorbe’s lawyers demanding to know how they plan to rectify the violation of the judge’s orders, Ghannam eventually responded that “Vorbe and those being housed at Krome were evacuated on an emergency basis in light of the brush fires in Miami-Dade County.”

Ghannam added that he was “working with the (ICE) Agency to determine next steps” to resolve the problem.

Vorbe’s lawyers said in their motion that they reached out to the Miami Federal Detention Center on Monday, and an employee said the facility had not received transfers from Krome that day but had received some “in the last couple of days.”

Seeking hearing before federal judge

His lawyers want ICE to return Vorbe to Miami so the federal judge can consider his habeas petition aiming to stop his detention by immigration authorities.

That review, they argued at a recent hearing, should take place in federal court rather than before an immigration judge. The Trump administration’s aggressive agenda targeting illegal immigration, coupled with the unusual nature of the proceedings against Vorbe, has made it difficult for him to receive a fair hearing, attorney Mark Prada told Gayles this month

“In our recent submission, we have shown evidence of immigration judges being fired when they vote favorably for people in these circumstances,” Prada said. “We submit the only way a bond hearing would be fair and comply with due process is if this court or a magistrate conducts the bond hearing.”

Gayles questioned whether he has the authority to make such a ruling, but kept returning to one central question: “How long can the government just keep him in custody if it can’t effectuate his removal?” the judge asked government lawyers, who struggled to respond.

No immigration judge has issued a removal order in Vorbe’s case, which is why he has asked a federal judge to end it on constitutional grounds. He entered the United States with a valid U.S. visa in January 2020, but was arrested in Miami by immigration in September of last year.

Since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, federal courts have been flooded with habeas corpus petitions from detained individuals such as Vorbe pleading for the opportunity for release.

The poor conditions inside detention centers and the prolonged confinement often compel detainees to give up their quest for a court hearing and opt to leave the country of their own accord. Vorbe tried to negotiate to be deported to a third country, the Dominican Republic, in May, but was rebuffed by Dominican authorities.

Vorbe’s case raises questions about indefinite detention, and about a rarely used authority, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, by the Secretary of State to deport individuals on foreign policy grounds. In his habeas petition, Vorbe points to an undated memorandum, which forms the basis of the administration’s removal proceedings. The letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserts that Vorbe has “engaged in a campaign of violence and gang support that contributed to Haiti’s destabilization.”

Prada told the court he is not challenging the secretary’s authority to make foreign policy determinations. Rather, he argued in the court filings, the government has failed to provide “zero evidentiary support for their claim” beyond the Rubio letter.

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