ICE Official Tells Attorney Whipple Re-Arrests Date to May as Cortez Is Released for Three Minutes

Jennifer Cortez’s husband was set to be released from immigration detention at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building the morning of Oct. 2. MPR News reports that Yader Cortez Andino is the third person it has spoken to who was immediately re-arrested by ICE at the Whipple building after a federal judge ordered their release. In a belated status report filed on behalf of Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, attorney Carl Berry wrote that Cortez was released Oct. 2 for three minutes. Judge Jerry Blackwell ordered the respondents to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for violating the court’s order requiring an update on the ordered release.

MPR News quotes an unnamed ICE official, as relayed by an attorney: “It’s not new; we’ve been doing this since May.” The officials said ICE has a “whole legal team working on these habeases” and that they identify “good candidates for re-arrest.”

Court records suggest two other men were ordered released and then immediately re-arrested at the Whipple building Sept. 9 and Sept. 22. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan reviewed ICE’s video of the Sept. 9 re-arrest and determined ICE agents “swarmed” the man; he wrote that if that re-arrest is considered lawful it “would render habeas relief meaningless.”

A man from Mexico was re-arrested just steps outside the Whipple building on Sept. 25; that re-arrest is recorded at 2026-09-25–ice-re-arrests-alejandro-inside-whipple-building-after-judge-ordered-release-minnesota.