ICE has re-arrested immigrants after they won release on habeas corpus petitions, and at least 20 cases have been identified nationwide in the past year. In some of those ice post-release immigrant detentions, people were taken again within days or before they even left the building.
Bridget Pranzatelli of the National Immigration Project said there has been “a very, very sharp increase” in people who are released on habeas petitions and then quickly re-detained. “We’ve seen a very, very sharp increase in people who are released on habeas petitions, only to be very rapidly re-detained, often in violation of the federal court’s order,” she said in a phone interview.
Akram Mahmoud Omar in Angola
Akram Mahmoud Omar was arrested again by ICE within 10 days of being released after a habeas petition. He is a 77-year-old Palestinian man who suffered a heart attack while detained in Camp 57 in Angola.
Habeas corpus petitions challenge the government’s right to hold someone in custody while the main legal case continues. More than 91,000 have been filed, and more have been filed since 25 January than during the past three presidential administrations combined, according to ProPublica.
Whipple federal building in Minnesota
Seven immigrants in Minnesota were re-detained before even exiting the Whipple federal building detention facility on the outskirts of Minneapolis. Daniel Suitor, attorney to two of the men, said, “I don’t think being taken out of a building and directly into the arms of four or more officers complies with the court’s order.”
In October, the 10th US circuit court of appeals in Colorado denied the government’s attempt to dismiss a habeas petition on the grounds that it had the power to re-detain the petitioner. The court said the government had a previous demonstrated pattern of re-detaining non-citizens who had been granted habeas relief.
Loulisiana contempt rulings
In Louisiana, a federal judge held a senior federal immigration official in contempt of court for violating orders and demanded Ibrahim Mohammed’s release after he had been re-arrested three times by ICE. Two other federal judges, in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, have also held federal immigration authorities in contempt or threatened to do so.
Susanna Booth of Amica Center for Immigrant Rights said the re-detentions are tied to the expansion of third country agreements with primarily African nations in the past four months. “It’s really tethered to the explosion of third country agreements with primarily African nations in the past four months,” she said. The pattern leaves courts deciding how far their release orders reach when ICE acts within hours or days, and the next response is likely to come from further court rulings rather than from ICE itself.
