US immigration agents detain two-year-old Minnesota girl: ‘depravity beyond words’ | Minneapolis
Federal immigration officials detained a two-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis on Thursday and transported them to Texas, according to court records and the family’s attorneys.
The father and his daughter, identified in court records as Elvis Joel TE, were stopped and detained by police officers at around 13:00 on their way home from the store. Towards evening, a federal judge ordered the girl’s release until 9:30 p.m. But federal officials in its place Put them both on a plane to a Texas detention center.
Irina Vaynerman, one of the family’s lawyers, told the Guardian on Friday afternoon that immigration officials have since taken them both back to Minnesota, leaving the two-year-old in the care of his mother. He said your father remains detained in Minnesota.
“The horror is truly unimaginable,” Vaynerman said. “The immorality of it all cannot be described in words.”
Court records and attorney statements paint a harrowing picture of the detention of the little boy and his father and the frantic efforts to release him from custody and reunite him with his mother. The detention came two days after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained five-year-old Liam Ramos in Minnesota; The case sparked international outrage and increased scrutiny of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown in the region.
Kira Kelley, an attorney for the family, wrote in a filing that agents entered their backyard and driveway as the father and daughter were coming home Thursday. The attorney said the officers did not have a search warrant. An agent allegedly broke the father’s car window while the girl was inside.
The mother was by the door and stepped into the house as agents approached, Kelley wrote. Agents did not allow the father to take his daughter to the mother or other family members, who were “waiting in fear at home.”
The two-year-old and his father were then placed in an immigration vehicle, which Kelley noted did not have a car seat.
Lawyers made an urgent call petitionFirst According to the Minnesota Star TribuneDemands that ICE release Elvis Joel TE and his daughter. A federal judge based in Minnesota issued an order around 8:10 p.m. prohibiting the government from transporting them out of Minnesota, and shortly thereafter issued a second order requiring the government to immediately release the girl into the custody of her attorney, Kelley.
Kelley had received permission from the girl’s mother to become the temporary guardian “in order to release the baby from immigration custody.”
The federal judge said the girl’s release was necessary because of the “risk of irreparable harm” and that the petition was likely to succeed on the merits.
“Needless to say, he has no criminal history whatsoever,” the judge wrote of the toddler.
But the family’s lawyers wrote that the government put the father and daughter on a plane to Texas around 8:30 p.m.
The father, who is originally from Ecuador, has a pending asylum application and no definitive deportation order, according to his lawyers. The girl had lived in Minneapolis “since her arrival in the United States as a newborn,” the attorneys wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to questions Friday about why the father and daughter were taken to Texas and what steps the government was taking to comply with the judge’s order.
On Thursday, Border Patrol conducted a “targeted enforcement operation” and agents “identified” Elvis Joel TE, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. DHS called him an “illegal immigrant,” claiming he re-entered the U.S. illegally and was “driving erratically with a child.”
Alleging that the father refused to open his door or roll down his window, DHS said agents “attempted to give the child to the mother who was in the area, but the mother refused.” “DHS law enforcement took care of the child the mother would not take,” the statement said.
Vaynerman, the family’s lawyer, stated that the mother’s claim that she “refused” to take her daughter was unfounded and that the agents would not allow the father to send his daughter back home to be with her mother.
DHS said a crowd had gathered outside at the time of the arrest, leading agents to implement “crowd control measures.” The Star Tribune said social media videos showed agents using chemical irritants and flash bang devices.
In the statement made by DHS, it was stated that father and daughter were “reunited” [at] federal facility,” but has not since acknowledged that she was returned to her mother. Spokespeople did not respond to additional questions about the attorneys’ accounts of the incident and her daughter’s return.
“This case is horrific… Anyone who is a parent or cares for young children knows the fear that occurs when a child is separated from their parents,” said Vaynerman, a civil rights attorney and co-founder. Basic LegalA public interest law firm based in Minnesota. “There is no way to know the long-term impact this will have on this little toddler.”
Vaynerman criticized DHS’s practice of quickly sending people into its custody out of state, saying the tactic was intended to move cases beyond the jurisdiction of courts in Minnesota and make it harder for families to reach attorneys and fight their cases.
“This is creating terror in our city and our state. It’s truly something I’ve never seen this extreme before,” he said.
The family’s attorneys urged the court to issue a broader order barring the government from transferring individuals out of Minnesota for at least seven days after they have been given the opportunity to contact legal counsel, and to prohibit out-of-state transfers of individuals with pending habeas petitions, meaning they face ongoing challenges to their detention.
“The lack of humanity in every step of this process for what the government is doing and how they are unlawfully detaining people, including toddlers and children, is truly unimaginable,” Vaynerman said. “And yet that’s where we find ourselves. There must be an end to this kind of cruelty.”
