Montgomery County is defending its policies regarding cooperation with federal immigration authorities after it released an undocumented immigrant accused of rape on bond last week. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had filed an immigration detainer request with the county, essentially asking them to hold the man in jail for up to 48 hours without a warrant—a practice which the county does not follow as a matter of local law.

Rodrigo Castro-Montejo, a 25-year-old Salvadoran national and an undocumented immigrant, is accused of raping an intoxicated woman on August 10, per court documents. The woman went to the hospital, where she reported the alleged crime to police, and where a police official watched her exchange text messages with Castro-Montejo in which he allegedly admitted to the crime, according to the warrant filed for his arrest.

On August 12, two days after the man’s arrest, ICE filed an immigration detainer request with the Montgomery County Detention Center where Castro-Montejo was being held. Immigration detainers ask that local law enforcement agencies maintain custody of a person—even if that person has been bonded out and there is no local legal basis to hold them—for up to 48 hours longer than they would otherwise be released, giving ICE agents time to show up to the jail and detain the immigrant. ICE also requests that the local law enforcement agency notify federal authorities before the immigrant is set to be released on bond or for any other reason.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer on Aug. 12 with the Montgomery County Detention Center on unlawfully present Salvadoran national Rodrigo Castro-Montejo following his arrest for rape and other related charges,” ICE said in a statement on Monday. “On Aug. 13, in spite of the detainer, the facility released Castro from custody.”

Montgomery County says that it followed its local laws, set out in County Executive Mark Elrich’s July executive order, which expressly prohibits local law enforcement from honoring immigration detainers (a practice the county already followed as a part of individual facility policy, but which hadn’t been set in stone before the order). The legality of honoring immigration detainers, which amounts to holding people in custody without a warrant, is in dispute—several jurisdictions have been successfully sued for holding immigrants in jail at the direction of federal immigration authorities.

While Montgomery County does not honor detainers, it does notify ICE of an immigrant’s pending release in cases where the immigrant is accused of a “serious crime” (murder, rape, armed robbery, or any other felony under Maryland’s statues), says Montgomery County spokesperson Barry Hudson.

“This started yesterday when ICE told a reporter that we did not notify them of [Castro-Montejo’s] release,” Hudson says. But the county holds that, in fact, they did: at noon on August 13, the county’s Department of Correction and Rehabilitation called ICE at a number they had been given for “notification purposes'” Hudson says in a statement, to let the agency know that Castro-Montejo had posted bond and was being processed for release that day. Castro-Montejo was released at 6 p.m., six hours after that call was made.

“DOCR has not received a follow-up call from ICE, nor any other communication regarding Castro-Montejo, since notifying ICE of his release,” the statement says.

ICE acknowledged on Tuesday that the county had made a call to notify the agency of Castro-Montejo’s release, but said they called “one off-duty officer, who was in a travel status outside of the area,” says ICE spokesperson Justine Whelan. Montgomery County DOCR should have called ICE’s Law Enforcement Support Center when it couldn’t reach the officer, Whelan says. Castro-Montejo has not been apprehended by the agency.

In addition to disallowing cooperation with immigration detainer requests, Elrich’s July executive order also prevents employees in any executive agency from inquiring about people’s immigration status or threatening anyone due to their immigration status, and prevents local officials from allowing federal officials into non-public spaces in government facilities.

This isn’t the first time that ICE and Montgomery County have been at odds over the release of an immigrant. In 2017, the federal agency criticized the county for not honoring a detainer for a 19-year-old immigrant accused of bringing an assault rifle to Albert Einstein High School. “Montgomery County, Maryland, is listed as a jurisdiction that has publicly limited cooperation with ICE and frequently ignores legally authorized detainers,” ICE said in a statement at the time.