BILLINGS — A Montana law firm and nonprofit is estimating more than 250 immigration enforcement arrests have happened in the state this year between ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Upper Seven Law, a Montana-based law firm and nonprofit, has been pursuing legal action against ICE, CBP, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
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The most recent legal action the law firm took was this week. The firm is representing individuals arrested by federal immigration enforcement, who filed a motion for a preliminary order Tuesday to require warrants for immigration arrests in Montana.
It followed a class action complaint filed Friday against DHS, ICE, CBP and DOJ.
Court documents say federal officials, “...have a well-established policy and practice of arresting first, justifying later. In the interim, DHS agents coerce unlawfully arrested individuals to give up their due process rights—including meritorious habeas relief. This policy and practice violates the United States Constitution and federal law.”
“All we're doing here is asking the government to follow its own laws,” said Molly Danahy, litigation director at Upper Seven Law. “They're not conducting the required determination to show that the person actually necessarily needs to be detained for some reason.”
This action follows a habeas petition that the firm filed on July 31, after CBP agents detained Jesus Hernandez and another man in Lewiston without a warrant. Hernandez was released on Aug. 7.
The firm also filed a class habeas petition on Aug. 2, asking DHS to “release individuals unlawfully detained in Montana.”
The petition has resulted in the release of 40 individuals from immigration detention, according to Danahy.
This includes a 9-year-old girl and her father, who were taken by ICE near United Way of Yellowstone County in Billings after they had attended the organization’s annual school supplies drive.
Danahy told MTN they were detained on Aug. 11 and the law firm secured their release on Aug. 19.
“They were detained at the Havre border patrol station,” said Danahy.
Many of the court documents contain complaints about these immigration detention facilities, which are often county or CBP facilities.
The documents say, “DHS agents force these arrested individuals to sleep on the floor, deprive them of adequate food and hygiene, and prevent them from accessing legal counsel. Alternatively, DHS agents remand custody of detained individuals to Montana county jails, where those individuals may be strip searched, forced to sleep on the floor, housed alongside persons charged with or convicted of criminal violations, and generally subjected to overcrowded, unsafe, and severely restrictive conditions.”
“They're often overcrowded,” said Danahy. “So, we've seen folks forced to sleep on the floor, share cells with three people in a two-person cell.”
Danahy told MTN there have likely been more than 250 immigration enforcement arrests in Montana, but that the firm did not have a record of CBP arrests until the habeas petition was filed.
ICE arrests have stirred protests in Billings.
Related: In Montana, debate emerges locally over ICE-- including inside city halls
A group from the Billings Alliance for Immigrant Rights gathered in downtown Billings Aug. 23, pressing local leaders to end immigration enforcement in Billings.
There has also been a movement to continue immigration enforcement. ICE posted a list on X of people who had been arrested this past week, with the caption, “ICE is getting illegal aliens OFF our streets and OUT of our country. Murderers, robbers, drug smugglers, and other dangerous criminals have been DEPORTED.”
Some local law enforcement agencies across the nation have entered into a 287(g) agreement with federal agencies, which allows local officers to make arrests on behalf of federal immigration enforcement.
MTN verified that Billings Police and the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office have not entered into those agreements, but they are required to temporarily hold detainees in county detention facilities after an arrest is made.
Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O'Donnell told MTN Thursday that the Yellowstone County Detention Facility is holding three people.
