Daniel Melchior
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Two months to the day after he was detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement, Summer of Peril bassist Marcos Flores was released on February 23.
“On 12/23 I was detained by ICE while working at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs,” Flores says on the band’s latest Instagram story. “Terrified about my future I spent the next 60 days not knowing if I would be sent to a country I haven’t been to since I was 4 years old. My brothers Matt & Alex set up a GoFund Me and 2 benefits shows to raise legal funds. My wife Sam & cousin Nicole worked to find our lawyers to start the fight and ultimately get me released. Colorado Hardcore & DIY scene forever. I hope to continue to raise awareness for my brothers still unlawfully detained who weren’t as lucky as me. Once again from the bottom of my heart thank you all. Words can’t describe how grateful I am nor how blessed I feel.”
According to Flores’s lawyer, Kristi Englekirk, he was released from the Aurora ICE Detention Facility and back home by 7 p.m. that night. Flores was initially detained on December 23 at the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy, where ICE agents were waiting for him as he arrived to perform contract work.
His release was ordered by Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Colorado, in response to a writ of habeas corpus petition filed in his case. That petition argued that his detention by ICE without a bond hearing was illegal, and the judge agreed.
“It is further ordered that Respondents shall release Petitioner from custody immediately, but no later than within 12 hours of this Order, and may not impose any additional conditions of release or supervision beyond those he was subject to immediately prior to his recent detention,” Sweeney ruled on February 23.
Her ruling added that “respondents are further enjoined and restrained from re-detaining Petitioner unless they demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence at a pre-deprivation bond hearing, that Petitioner is a flight risk or danger to the community such that his physical custody is legally justified.”
The initial habeas filing in Flores’s case was submitted on January 29; on February 2, Magistrate Judge Kathryn A. Starnella gave authorities 21 days to show cause why the petition should not be granted.
“The order that we received on the habeas petition was just really important, because they found that ICE was illegally detaining him, and that the immigration judge was violating the law by keeping him in custody by not giving him a bond hearing,” Englekirk explains. “Instead of saying, ‘You have to give him a bond hearing,’ the judge said, ‘I’m not even going to bother with sending this back to the immigration judge for a bond hearing. I’m just finding that this is all flat-out illegal, and he has to be released right now.'”
A Major Shift in Detention Cases
These and similar rulings mark a major shift for many currently involved in immigration detention cases, Englekirk adds. While district court judges were previously requiring bond hearings as a remedy for the influx in deportation cases, many have now changed gears, “ordering immediate relief, because ICE and the immigration judges keep violating the law this way and holding people unconstitutionally,” Englekirk says.
Daniel Melchior
Flores entered the U.S. from Mexico as a young child and doesn’t remember living in Mexico or being brought to this country. According to Englekirk, he’s a longtime DACA status holder; she notes that most of his family members have lawful status. Several of them are U.S. citizens and others have green cards.
Despite his release from custody, Flores’s deportation case remains open, and he will have to continue fighting his case in order to remain in the U.S. long-term. However, under the judge’s ruling, he can no longer be detained while awaiting further legal proceedings.
A Long Road Ahead
Englekirk estimates that Flores’s initial hearing may not take place for another six to eight months. Some of her past immigration detention cases have taken as many as twelve years to be closed, she adds, while some others have been completed in under a year.
With the recent influx of people taken into ICE custody, the docket for immigration detention cases is especially long right now, she says, making it even more difficult to predict how long a case like Flores’s might take. Many judges are currently focused on cases involving people who are actively in detention, rather than those in which people have been released, Englekirk adds.
Earlier this month, ProPublica reported that 20,659 habeas petitions had been logged in the U.S. since January 2025, with 241 of those cases coming from Colorado. The report notes that there have been more Habeas petitions filed in the first thirteen months of Trump’s second term than in the past three administrations combined, including those filed during his first term.
Flores’s release came just days after a benefit showat Soundbar in Fort Collins organized by bandmates Alex Forbes and Matt Lopez. The lineup included a surprise set from Summer of Peril with a fill-in bass player, along with the hardcore bands Bangalore (which Forbes and Lopez are also in), Suicide Cages, and special reunion sets from Rukkus and Wolfblitzer.
The room was filled to capacity with music fans, community members, and other friends and supporters of Flores, and it brought in $4,192 for Flores’s legal efforts. The GoFundMe page for that fund has raised $41,395 so far.