Federal judge orders the release of nationally known immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir

Mr Ragbi was taken into detention earlier this month

Mr Ragbir pictured here in March 2017 (AP)

An immigrant rights leader has been released from federal detention after a judge called his imprisonment a “cruel” and “unnecessary” violation of his right to due process.

Federal court judge Katherine Forrest ordered the immediate release of Ravi Ragbir, a nationally recognised immigrant rights activist who is the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, Monday. Mr Ragbir was detained January 11 during a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York.

“The judge's decision restores my faith in the power of our institutions to protect the rights of people facing such a cruel and inhumane system,” Amy Gottlieb, Mr Ragbir’s wife and an immigrant rights advocate with American Friends Service Committee, said in a statement.

“I am so thrilled that Ravi will be home with me, as he always should have been,” she continued. “Now the fight is to make sure Ravi can remain here with his family and continue his work to support immigrant rights in the United States.”

Mr Ragbir, born in Trinidad, first received a green card in 1994, but was later detained by ICE in 2006 for nearly two years because of an old wire fraud conviction. Mr Ragbir was later released in 2008 when the federal agency determined that he did not pose a flight risk, or a danger to the community.

Following his 2008 release, Mr Ragbir began working as a community activist, rising in the ranks to his current position leading a coalition of over 150 faith based groups that advocate for immigrant rights.

A wave of letters and phone calls from community organisations and elected officials have been sent towards the US Department of Homeland Security in recent days, as efforts were made to get Mr Ragbir released from custody.

“Taking such a man, and there are many such men and women like him, and subjecting him to what is rightfully understood as no different or better than penal detention is certainly cruel,” wrote Ms Forrest in her decision. “We as a country need and must not act so. The Constitution commands better.”

President Donald Trump’s administration has overseen an up tick in detention of immigrants in the just over a year since Mr Trump’s inauguration. At the same time, however, the administration has seen a drop in overall deportation rates.