The acting head of ICE's Denver field office testified on Monday, Nov. 9, that he told agents to re-arrest people federal judges had freed. Nathan Rasper said he meant to fix paperwork errors in their first arrests and believed it was legal. He said he stopped on Nov. 4. But a government lawyer said at least one more person was re-arrested after that day's hearing. Judge Charlotte Sweeney will decide whether to start contempt proceedings, which can penalize someone who disobeys a court. The transcript is not online. Rasper's words are as reported by Colorado Politics, The Denver Post, CBS Colorado and 9NEWS.
How it started
Ramon Quintero Alvarez, held at the Aurora immigration detention center, filed a habeas petition asking a judge to free him. The government let its deadline pass. For months, the U.S. Attorney's Office has mostly declined to contest such petitions. Under an Oct. 8 deal with the court, an unanswered petition means release within a day. Rasper said he did not know about the deal. Government lawyers wrote that Alvarez was released on Oct. 27 and "immediately re-detained." They said they would not argue that his detention "is lawful."
Nichole Black, an ICE assistant field office director, testified on Nov. 4, Colorado Politics reported. "I received a direct order," she said, "to re-detain habeas releases that had some kind of criminality." She had believed Alvarez had a domestic battery conviction. Asked if she still did, she said, "I was told that charges were not filed." Rasper called her account "overly compressed." Sweeney ordered Alvarez freed.
What Rasper said
Rasper said he heard "there were a lot of arrests being found unlawful." He testified that ICE legal advisers called re-arrests a fix for those cases. He thought they would correct "technical" paperwork errors, The Denver Post reported. "What happened to Mr. Alvarez is not a technical violation. It's a due process violation," Sweeney said.
Government lawyers listed at least 18 people re-arrested within 12 hours of a court-ordered release since Oct. 27. Their first list showed 14 who had since been freed again. The legal director of the ACLU of Colorado said, "What we're seeing is instructions from Washington that amount to abuses." Rasper said no one in ICE ordered him to do it. He said "colleagues" told him Minnesota courts "had allowed the immediate re-arrest of an alien released." There, an ICE official told a lawyer in October, "It's not new; we've been doing this since May," MPR News reported.
The two sides
The Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, says "ICE complies with all lawful court orders." A release order "does not immunize the alien from immigration enforcement for all time," DHS told Fox News. ICE "may seek to rearrest the alien in a way that complies with the judicial decision," it said. To say it cannot is "nothing short of sabotage," DHS said.
In Minnesota, government lawyers argued that a re-arrest on a new ICE warrant, called an I-200, starts a "new spell of detention." Judge John Tunheim rejected that on Oct. 30. "An arrest is not 'on a warrant' when the Government creates a warrant after the arrest occurs," he wrote, quoting another court. Two other Minnesota judges have declined to order re-arrested men freed again. No appeals court has ruled. In Colorado, ICE's lawyers "have repeatedly declined to defend the re-arrests," The Denver Post reported.
Penalties elsewhere
As of Nov. 12, Profoundd found no court that has penalized ICE for re-arresting people at the gate. Judges in Colorado and Minnesota are weighing it. In August, a Louisiana federal judge held a senior ICE official in contempt, with damages and fees, over a later re-arrest. The official had a Maryland man re-arrested at home, months after the judge's release orders. He said his aim was "to remove all criminals" in his area. The man has a child sex-abuse conviction. DHS called the judge an activist.
Reporting through Thursday, November 12, 2026. Sources: U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, Quintero Alvarez v. Baltazar, No. 1:26-cv-04891, docket (through Nov. 10, 2026) and Nov. 4 courtroom minutes; U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, Ivan F.M. v. Blanche order, Oct. 30, 2026; Colorado Politics, Nov. 4, Nov. 6 and Nov. 9, 2026; The Denver Post, Nov. 9, 2026; CBS Colorado, Nov. 9, 2026; 9NEWS, Nov. 9, 2026; MPR News, Oct. 13, Oct. 28, Nov. 9 and Nov. 11, 2026; Fox News, Nov. 7, 2026; The Baltimore Banner, Aug. 19, 2026; The Lens, Aug. 18, 2026.
