Upper Seven Law, a Helena-based firm, has emerged as one of the most active legal operations in the country challenging warrantless immigration arrests, filing dozens of habeas corpus petitions in recent weeks on behalf of people it says were unlawfully detained. The firm filed 37 petitions last week alone and had added six more by midday Monday as the paperwork moved through the courts at a pace the attorneys described as a flurry.
The effort has produced results. Upper Seven announced last Friday that 24 people it characterized as "unlawfully detained individuals" had been released from the Cascade County detention facility, where many immigration detainees in Montana have been held. The releases came in a batch following the court filings, a pattern the firm says it expects to continue as more petitions are heard.
The cases sit at the intersection of immigration enforcement and constitutional rights — specifically the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Upper Seven's attorneys have argued that federal agents arrested their clients without the individualized warrants that constitutional law requires, making the detentions unlawful regardless of the detainees' immigration status. Federal courts, at least in some of these cases, have agreed.
The legal fight in Helena connects directly to the broader debate happening at City Hall over the Homeland Security camera grant and what obligations the city does or doesn't have to federal immigration enforcement. Upper Seven's work has made Helena a focal point in the national conversation about immigration detention rights at a moment when that conversation is happening in courtrooms, commission chambers, and kitchen tables across the state.