Bozeman Man Released From ICE Custody Following Detainment on June 29th

Bozeman, Mont. — A 20-year-old man returned home to Bozeman on July 8thafter a federal judge ordered his release from custody in an immigration case that has drawn attention across Montana.  

Attorneys for Jose David Cortes-Torres said he left the Cascade County Detention Center at about 10:15 a.m. Wednesday Morning after the judge's order.  

Cortes-Torres said ICE agents arrested him on June 29. Court records said agents stopped Cortes-Torres at a red light in Bozeman on June 29th before taking him to a holding facility in Helena.  

His attorneys said agents pressured him there to self-deport, but he refused.  

Cortes-Torres was born in Mexico and had lived in Bozeman since 2023. He attended high school there and also served as the primary caregiver for his grandmother.  

Andres Haladay of Upper Seven Law represented Cortes-Torres in court. 

NonStop Local spoke with him Wednesday afternoon after the release.  

“Ultimately, the federal government agreed that this case was legally indistinguishable from a previous case called Orozco-Ramirez that judge Morris had previously decided back in April or May; And really, the U.S. government is just taking a legal position that the judge had already rejected, and so there really wasn’t a lot of back and forth. Mostly, the parties were just there to kind of make their general pitches to the court,” said Andres Haladay.  

Haladay said the case involved a position the judge had already rejected in an earlier ruling.  

Along with ordering his release, the federal judge said the government could not arrest or detain Cortes-Torres again in connection with this immigration case.