At least 17 immigrants were re-arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they left the Aurora detention center between Oct. 27 and Nov. 3, despite federal judges having ordered their release, according to interviews and court records reviewed by The Denver Post. The arrests prompted judges to demand explanations and issue further release orders.
Some detainees encountered agents waiting outside the facility’s front entrance. Five men were transported to ICE’s field office in Centennial, then returned to Aurora and arrested individually. Government lawyers reported in one filing that a man was released at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and arrested again a minute later. Another man, re-arrested Oct. 31, was flown to Arizona and Louisiana in preparation for deportation before eventually being released, court filings showed.
One detainee, identified by his middle name, Alex, because he feared government retaliation, told The Post that agents handcuffed him after his court-ordered release following more than a year in detention. He alleged that an agent elbowed his leg twice, raised his cuffed arms behind his back and struck his jaw when he complained of pain. Another agent intervened, he said. Alex was released again Thursday after the judge sought an explanation from ICE’s lawyers.
The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that a release order does not exempt an immigrant without legal status from enforcement and maintained that re-arrests can comply with court orders. Asked about Alex’s allegations, the agency requested his personal information, which The Post withheld over his safety concerns. A representative then said the agency could not comment on the specific allegations but took misconduct accusations seriously.
ICE supervisor Nicole Black testified that senior officials directed agents to re-arrest people with some kind of “criminality” unless a judge’s order expressly barred it. She also described instructions to put released immigrants on GPS ankle monitors unless judges explicitly prohibited that step. Lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado, however, repeatedly declined in court filings to defend the legality of the renewed detentions or unauthorized GPS monitoring.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney summoned Black and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Soler after learning Tuesday that a man she had ordered freed was detained again. During Wednesday’s hearing, Black acknowledged that the man had not been charged with a crime, according to Colorado Politics. Sweeney warned government lawyers that they were approaching professional misconduct, scheduled another hearing for Monday and required a more senior ICE official to attend.
Other judges also intervened. U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews ordered another man released Tuesday and characterized his re-arrest as gamesmanship. In hearings Thursday and Friday, U.S. District Judge Nina Wang questioned Black and Soler about ankle monitors imposed on two immigrants she had ordered released. Wang said the monitoring violated her orders and threatened Friday to hold the government in contempt.
Yvenson Lebrun, a 27-year-old Haitian from Florida, was among the five men taken to Centennial on Oct. 27. After 14 months in detention, he said, agents seized him as he stepped through the Aurora facility’s doorway. Following an emergency court motion, U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher gave ICE four hours to release him or explain the arrest. Lebrun said he trusted that he was finally free only after boarding a plane out of Colorado. His two children cried when he returned home.
