Caution grips Gallatin Co. Latino community after immigration enforcement operations

BOZEMAN – After a nationwide surge in immigration-related arrests reached Gallatin County last week, fear has gripped the local Latino community. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out multiple operations around Bozeman and Gallatin Gateway throughout the week of June 29, according to multiple news reports. In some instances, single individuals were pulled over and taken into custody. In others, groups of people were arrested en masse.

ICE has not said how many people were taken into custody over the last few days, but Bienvenidos a Gallatin Valley, a nonprofit that connects Spanish speakers to resources in the area, estimated Monday that roughly 150 residents have been detained. Sally Moyce, a Bienvenidos board member, said that estimate is based on eyewitness accounts and family members reaching out to the organization. Other reported estimates put the tally around 100.

The Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency that oversees ICE, did not directly respond to questions about whether it plans to continue similar operations in the coming weeks, or if the agency has a goal for the number of arrests it wants to make in Montana. 

“Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe, including in Montana,” an unidentified spokesperson said in an email response to those questions. “DHS is working rapidly and overtime to remove aliens from our streets and to their final destination — home.”

The ICE activity around the Gallatin Valley coincides with a sharp surge in immigration-related arrests nationwide. Federal immigration officers detained more than 10,000 people during the last five days of June, according to news reports. 

Andrea Sweeney, a Missoula-based immigration attorney, told MTFP that since June 30, the number of inquiries she has received for legal services has “exponentially increased.” 

In the wake of the federal operations, many Latino residents in Gallatin County have stopped leaving their homes entirely out of fear they will be arrested, according to local business owners and community organizers. 

Beatriz Monroy owns a housekeeping business in the valley. She told MTFP that employees who are in the United States legally on visas have stopped coming to work for fear they will be arrested based on the color of their skin. Monroy typically fields eight employees, but this week only she and her sister have been working. 

To accommodate the staffing shortage, she has rescheduled clients, worked later hours, and asked her husband to help, but it’s been difficult to maintain the workload, she said. 

Beatriz’s husband, Jose Monroy, owns a contracting company. He has started to pick up his employees — some of whom he acknowledged are not in the country legally — instead of asking them to drive to job sites. The Monroys have also begun delivering groceries to local residents who are reluctant to be seen in public after last week’s arrests.

Unlike some other places in the United States, Gallatin County has not been a hotbed of ICE activity during the second Trump administration. Jose said he knows of some Latino immigrants who came to southwest Montana for that reason, and have felt safer in the area because of the limited ICE activity. 

“The tables have turned so quickly, they’re like, ‘where do we go now,’” Jose said in a phone interview. “They’re in constant fear of what’s going to happen.” 

Almost immediately after federal officials started taking people into custody last week, area residents began reaching out to Bienvenidos a Gallatin Valley, saying they were afraid to leave their homes. Bienvenidos began organizing deliveries of groceries and toiletries out of their Bozeman office, but last week the demand grew so large that organizers had to move the operation (which is almost entirely operated by volunteers) to a local church, Moyce said. Between Wednesday of last week and Monday, Bienvenidos says it sent deliveries to nearly 160 area households — ranging from 4 to 15 people in size — across Gallatin County. 

“We have never done this before,” Moyce said. “We didn’t have a system set up for this.” 

At the church on Monday, swaths of floor, rows of seats, roughly a dozen folding tables and an entire room were occupied with household supplies awaiting delivery, including perishable and nonperishable food, diapers, infant formula, and female sanitary products, many of which were donated by community members and local businesses. 

The delivery volunteers are vetted by the organization, Moyce explained. To help recipients feel safe answering the door, Bienvenidos staff sends them a photo of the volunteer’s face and the make and model of their car. One volunteer said she planned to purchase water-soluble paper from a craft store to write addresses on in case immigration agents stopped her en route. 

Asked about the fear the arrests have instilled in the community, the DHS spokesperson wrote that legal U.S. residents “have nothing to fear.”

One of the people detained last week is David Jose Cortes Torres. Cortes Torres, a 20-year-old Bozeman resident who has lived in the city for the last three years, was pulled over the morning of June 29 and taken into custody, according to federal court filings. His attorney, Andres Haladay, said Cortes Torres is not a citizen of the United States, and is not in the country on a visa, but Haladay declined to say if his client is in the U.S. illegally. 

Cortes Torres is also the primary caretaker for his grandmother, who has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy treatments, according to court filings. Halady said community members are taking her to chemotherapy appointments and filling gaps in her care in Cortes Torres’ absence. 

The court filings allege that Cortes Torres’s due process rights were violated, in part because officers did not have a warrant and he is being held without criminal charges. Cortes Torres had a hearing Tuesday in federal court in Great Falls, where he is currently detained. His attorney is requesting that he be released immediately.

“Being in detention is a choice,” the DHS spokesperson said in response to a question about the Cortes Torres case. “We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.” 

In another recent Montana immigration case, Brian Morris, the chief judge for U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, ordered that an undocumented immigrant and longtime Froid resident be released from the Cascade County Detention Center, writing that people who are accused of entering the United States illegally have a right to due process. Morris is also assigned to Cortes Torres’ case, but did not rule from the bench Tuesday. 

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Local law enforcement response to ICE’s presence in Gallatin County has been varied. Bozeman Police Department Chief Deputy Joe Swanson said the department did not know the federal government was planning the operations. 

“Do they have to tell us? They don’t. But it’s smart for everyone’s safety,” Swanson said in a phone interview. 

Sheriff Dan Springer declined an interview with MTFP and referred to a press release distributed by his department Friday that discourages residents from interfering with the federal operations. 

“ICE is carrying out its mission,” Springer said in the release. 

“…the enforcement of these laws is a public safety and law enforcement matter rather than a political one,” the press release continued. “The information known at this time indicates the operation was a success and concluded safely, despite the local agitator groups’ attempts to harass, interfere, or obstruct.”

Springer did not respond when asked if there would be more ICE activity in the coming days. Swanson said he did not know. 

The arrests come during an ongoing dispute between Gallatin County prosecutor Audrey Cromwell and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. Knudsen recently accused Cromwell’s office of having an internal policy that does not recognize ICE as a law enforcement agency. Cromwell has denied this claim. She previously explained that ICE had requested information of the city that was “nonpublic,” and that her office does not have a blanket policy in place regarding cooperation with ICE. The matter is currently before the state Supreme Court.  

This story was updated July 7, 2026, to remove the name of the church to which Bienvenidos a Gallatin Valley moved its delivery assistance operation. MTFP has removed the name of the church at the request of Bienvenidos a Gallatin Valley, which had a signed agreement with the church that its identity would be revealed only to Bienvenidos a Gallatin Valley staff and volunteers out of concern for the possibility of retaliation against the church. MTFP was not made aware of that agreement prior to the initial publication of the story, and has made the decision to honor Bienvenidos a Gallatin Valley’s retroactive request in accordance with our publication’s ethical responsibility to minimize harm. Previously published references to the identity of the church have also been removed from social media posts promoting the story.

This story was also updated July 7, 2026, to include post-publication comment from the Department of Homeland Security.