Colorado ICE re-arrests followed Minnesota’s lead, official says
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A Colorado Immigration and Customs Enforcement official testified Monday that he directed agents to immediately re-arrest immigrants freed by federal judges after hearing his “colleagues” in Minnesota were doing the same.
Acting Denver Field Office Director Nathan Rasper told U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney he heard courts in Minnesota “allowed the immediate re-arrest of an alien released.” Two federal judges in Minnesota have found instant re-arrests did not violate their orders, but two others strongly disagreed. An appellate court has yet to weigh in.
Monday’s hearing was the second Sweeney has held to question ICE officials’ actions after learning a man she ordered released was immediately re-detained on Oct. 27. Rasper testified he stopped the re-arrests after the first hearing on Nov. 4.
“Releasing somebody momentarily is not releasing somebody at all,” Sweeney said at the Nov. 4 hearing.
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The re-arrest tactic had become common in Colorado.
At the first hearing, assistant U.S. attorney Andrew Soler, representing the government, said the man re-detained Oct. 27 was “at least the 10th in a week.”
After that hearing, Sweeney required the government to list every Colorado case since Oct. 27 in which ICE re-arrested someone within 12 hours of a court-ordered release — a window of about nine days.
MPR News has not been able to review the full list submitted by the government, but a court order shows it included 14 people who had since been released again. The ACLU of Colorado told the court Monday the list was likely an undercount.
MPR News has confirmed at least eight men in Minnesota have been instantly re-arrested by ICE agents after federal judges ordered their release.
The men were brought to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building for processing, signed release paperwork and handed their belongings. Agents re-arrested them before they could leave federal property. One man was instantly re-arrested twice.
ICE’s St. Paul field office did not answer whether it advised agents in other states on re-arrests of people released by federal judges.
Instead, an unnamed spokesperson for ICE’s Midwest office defended the practice of re-arrests Tuesday, writing, in part: “When appropriate, ICE will address the issues identified by the court and take further action consistent with applicable law and court orders, which can include rearresting an offender.”
A different unnamed spokesperson for ICE previously wrote on Oct. 27 that ICE “may seek to rearrest the alien in a way that complies with the judicial decision” and saying ICE cannot do that is “nothing short of sabotage.”
Sweeney’s written order on whether she will hold the government in contempt is pending.
