BOSTON –– A Scarborough man detained by ICE agents twice in six months is now awaiting a decision by a federal judge in Massachusetts as to whether he will be released or deported.

Jonas Serugo Manywa was arrested earlier this year and taken to a Massachusetts facility. A court in Chelmsford, Massachusetts ordered him released under an order of supervision on Feb. 3, according to court records.

That order, according to court records, was canceled without Manywa’s knowledge and ICE agents arrested him once again on Aug. 4.

Ruben Torres, director of advocacy and policy for the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, said his organization’s hotline for reporting ICE activity has occasionally had calls reporting people being arrested more than once. 

“It’s unfortunately something that we have heard, but also it’s an extremely rare circumstance,” he said.

Manywa is a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but “He has been told that ICE intends to remove him to Cameroon,” according to court records.

Torres said he has heard of people being scheduled to be deported to the wrong country “very rarely,” but added it speaks to the larger issue of ICE agents sometimes making mistakes.

“I think that’s a very tricky situation that we’ve been dealing with is the way that these removals have been happening,” he said. 

According to a petition for Manywa’s release, ICE violated its own procedure in revoking Manywa’s order of supervision.

“That regulation requires an official, such as the field office director, to determine that revocation of a noncititzen's release is in the public interest and provide that noncitizen with an adequate opportunity to rebut that determination,” Manywa’s attorney Amelia Ritenour wrote. “Here, there is no evidence that the acting Field Office Director made such findings prior to the revocation or that Respondents afforded Manywa a meaningful opportunity to rebut such findings.”

In the Aug. 21 order, Judge Richard G. Stearns ordered federal officials “to demonstrate that ICE has complied with its own internal regulations or show cause why petitioner should not be immediately released as a consequence of its failure to do so.” Stearns set a seven-day deadline, which expires on Friday, Aug. 28.

Ritenour declined to comment on the case, and DHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Torres said ICE’s tactics have instilled fear in immigrant and non-immigrant communities statewide.

“Public safety should be the Number One priority, and the way that enforcement has been conducted has not been targeting public safety issues,” he said.