Bozeman man held near Helena airport after Gallatin County ICE operation; legal petition filed

Cortes-Torres attended high school in Bozeman and has been living there for the past three years. He is also the primary caretaker for his grandmother, who is undergoing cancer treatment. Documents state she was scheduled to undergo her second chemotherapy treatment on the day after Cortes-Torres was arrested. 

The Gallatin County operation comes amid a surge in ICE arrests across the country at the end of June, with numbers reaching 10,000 in five days, according to reporting from the New York Times.

Haladay explained that the typical transfer path for people detained by ICE in Gallatin County seems to run through the Helena holding facility — one of only two designated ICE holding facilities in the state, along with one in Billings. From there, detainees are transported to the Cascade County Detention Center before eventually being transferred out of state.

According to the inmate roster, 12 individuals classified as immigration inmates were booked into the Cascade County Detention Center during the week that the arrests occurred. Any ICE data regarding the arrests will not be publicly available for another 2-3 months, according to Haladay.

The Independent Record was not able to independently verify how many individuals were arrested during the operation or if specific sites were targeted. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Haladay filed a habeas corpus petition in Montana U.S. District Court on July 1 on Cortes-Torres's behalf, arguing the government has no legal basis to keep him detained and asking for his immediate release or a bond hearing.

Habeas corpus filings have been on the rise nationwide in the past year, with more filed in the first 13 months of Trump's second administration than in the previous three administrations combined, according to a ProPublica tracker.

These federal petitions have become one of the only paths to release for ICE detainees since a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals expanded mandatory detention last summer.

On the morning of June 29, Cortes-Torres was pulled over at a stoplight in Bozeman by an unmarked vehicle. ICE agents got out, reviewed his driver's license and told him he "had no right to be in the United States," according to the habeas filing. The petition states that agents forcibly removed him from his vehicle and handcuffed him before driving him and another arrested individual to a different plaza in Bozeman.

Agents then placed him in a vehicle with several other individuals, one of whom told him two vans of people had already left that morning, the filing states.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office issued a press release on July 3 stating that local law enforcement was aware that the operation was taking place but they did not have a direct role. 

The release states that “local agitator groups” tried to intervene and claims that individuals were harassing law enforcement and following their vehicles. 

“Sheriff Springer reminds everyone, jeopardizing the safety of law enforcement, or obstructing justice – whether at a local or federal level – will not be tolerated,” the press release states. 

Cortes-Torres was then transported to the "ICE Helena Hold Room" near the airport, where he was allegedly held for more than 24 hours, per Haladay's filing. According to the petition, the roughly 200-square-foot room has a couple of wooden benches and a single blanket. Cortes-Torres was held there with 17 other people and forced to stand for more than six hours due to the lack of space, the petition states.

ICE agents allegedly pressured Cortes-Torres to self-deport, at one point offering him $270 to leave voluntarily, which he declined, according to the filing. He was permitted a three-minute call with his attorney but was otherwise allegedly barred from speaking with anyone.

Cortes-Torres was transported to the Cascade County Detention Center, where he remains detained as of Monday. His next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in Great Falls.