In several hastily scheduled court hearings held over the past week, a handful of federal judges from the U.S. District Court of Colorado have hauled top Colorado immigration supervisors to the stand to question why they aren’t following, or even bothering to read, explicit orders restricting ICE’s conduct.

At least 18 people, and immigration attorneys estimate it’s likely much more given that so many immigrants represent themselves, have been held in detention longer than they should have or even been re-arrested after their release was ordered by federal judges in the past several weeks.

At a hearing on Monday — the latest in a series of similar encounters in the past week — U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney pointedly asked the acting field director for ICE in Colorado for an explanation of how immigrants can be re-detained after being ordered set free by the court while they pursue immigration cases.

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“ICE is not in the position to monitor its own conduct in terms of its legality,” Sweeney said. “It is not something the court will tolerate. It’s a due process violation … it’s truly egregious in terms of a constitutional violation. I will be issuing an order that reflects that.”

And she is just the latest federal judge to declare her frustration.

The controversy has been simmering as lawyers for detainees have increasingly turned to federal court for help in getting immigrants released from detention so they can be with their families while pursuing legal status in the U.S.

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“These cases are an appalling new take on existing … strategies by ICE to terrify people and defy court orders,” wrote ACLU of Colorado lawyers in a court document filed over the weekend. “Without swift intervention, ICE will likely continue these brutal, unlawful tactics in defiance of the court, causing profound harm to this court’s authority.”

Those violations in Colorado range from ICE requiring people to wear ankle monitors when they were ordered to be released without any conditions to fully re-arresting immigrants just moments after they were released following a judicial decision.

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“I was telling one of the ICE agents, ‘Hey, I’m still in the process of fighting my case. I don’t know if you guys are rearresting us, but it feels like it,” Garcia said in an interview with CPR News. “And the ICE agent, he said, ‘You guys found a way to get out. You guys found a loophole to get out legally. So we found a way,’ and he said it sarcastically; he said it with a smirk on his face. He said, so we found a way to rearrest you guys. And then he said, ‘legally.'"

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Two big problems are at issue for federal government lawyers defending Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

The first is volume.

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The other problem facing federal prosecutors, who also act as defenders of the federal government’s agencies, is that ICE doesn’t seem to be really listening to them, or reading judicial orders.