Immigrants are being released from detention, then rearrested by ICE

Immigrants granted release from ICE custody through court hearings may find themselves back in similar circumstances, as the agency has reportedly made a habit of rearresting people after a judge initially let them go. Advocates say this is a violation of the immigrants’ civil rights.

A ‘very, very sharp increase’

At least 20 people released from ICE detention following court proceedings in the last year were soon arrested again, according to an investigation by The Guardian. Most of these people were freed via habeas corpus petitions, which let detainees challenge the government’s legal right to imprison them.

There has been a “very, very sharp increase in people who are released on habeas petitions, only to be very rapidly redetained, often in violation of the federal court’s order,” Bridget Pranzatelli, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, told The Guardian. One man, Akram Mahmoud Omar, 77, was released via a habeas corpus petition after suffering a heart attack at an ICE detention camp in Louisiana. But “just 10 days after his release, ICE seized Omar again and tried to whisk the still-recovering man onto a deportation flight,” said The Intercept. He was eventually released following another court order.

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‘It left me in shock’

The people being rearrested can experience lasting trauma. Yader Cortez of St. Cloud, Minnesota, was “on the cusp of securing U.S. residency” only to be “detained again just three minutes after a judge’s order freed him,” said MPR News. “He tells me, ‘You’re being arrested by ICE.’ I ask, ‘Why? The judge is letting me go free, isn’t he?’” Cortez told MPR of the official who rearrested him. “Then he said, ‘The judge doesn’t know what he’s doing. He made a mistake in your case.’”

“I had never experienced anything like that — going from being free to suddenly being imprisoned again,” Cortez added. “It left me in shock.”

Lawyers say ICE often keeps people’s property even after they are released. The agency has “withheld government-issued identification documents,” said the ACLU of Washington, D.C., and some immigrants have “lost jobs, risked rearrest when leaving their homes and suffered significant hardship” as a result.