Last week, an American family thought their prayers had been answered when a judge ruled their husband and father could finally come home for good.

Unfortunately, Rene Lima-Marin didn’t walk through the doors of his Colorado home as planned on Wednesday afternoon, after his release was placed on hold because of immigration concerns.

Lima-Marin, 38, was released from prison in 2008 because of a paperwork error, CNN reports.

The father-of-two, who moved to America from Cuba when he was a one-year-old, had been serving a 98-year sentence for robbing two video stores in 1998.

But after six years of living as a free man, he was re-incarcerated in 2014 and separated from his wife Jasmine and their two children.

In that period, Lima-Marin had found a job, started a family and bought a home.

Which was why  Judge Carlos Samour Jr. labeled him an "asset to society" and an "outstanding citizen" when he ruled he should have the remainder of his sentence wiped.

"It would be utterly unjust to compel Lima-Marin, at this juncture, to serve the rest of his extremely long sentence," he wrote in his 165-page decision.

"Requiring Lima-Marin to serve the rest of his prison sentence all these years later would be draconian, would deprive him of substantive due process, and would perpetrate a manifest injustice."

And yet, despite proving himself to be a reformed man, Lima-Marin again faces an uncertain future after being taken into custody by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as he left a corrections facility on Wednesday.

According to a spokesperson from ICE, soon after his conviction in 2000, a federal immigration judge had ordered his removal from the country but placed no timeframe on the instruction.

It could be that the dad receives a downgraded supervision order, meaning he would simply have to check-in with ICE periodically, but as his wife told KDVR:

"We just have to wait."

Listen: James Phelps talks about his book Australia’s Most Murderous Prison, Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail: