Depravity beyond words: US immigration agents detain two-year-old in Minnesota

Federal immigration agents detained a two-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis and transported them to Texas despite a court order directing the child’s immediate release, according to court records and the family’s lawyers.

The father, identified in court filings as Elvis Joel TE, and his daughter were stopped by federal agents around 1 pm on Thursday as they were returning home from a store. Lawyers said the officers entered the family’s backyard and driveway without a warrant and detained the pair.

Irina Vaynerman, a lawyer representing the family, said late Friday that immigration authorities had flown the father and daughter back to Minnesota and handed the two-year-old over to her mother. The father, however, continues to remain in detention in the state, she said.

“The horror is truly unimaginable,” Vaynerman said. “The depravity of all of this is beyond words.”

By the evening, a federal judge in Minnesota ordered that the child be released by 9.30 pm, citing the risk of “irreparable harm”. However, immigration authorities placed both the father and daughter on a flight to a Texas detention facility later that night.

Following emergency legal filings, immigration officials flew the pair back to Minnesota and released the two-year-old into the custody of her mother, Irina Vaynerman, one of the family’s lawyers, said on Friday. The father remains detained in Minnesota.

Court documents filed by the family’s attorneys allege that during the detention, agents broke a window of the father’s car while the child was inside and refused to allow the father to hand the toddler over to her mother, who was present at the home. The lawyers also claimed the child was placed in an immigration vehicle without a car seat.

A Minnesota-based federal judge had issued an initial order prohibiting the transfer of the father and daughter out of the state, followed by a second order directing that the child be immediately released to her attorney, who had been authorised by the mother to act as a temporary guardian for that purpose. The judge noted that the toddler had no criminal history and that her continued detention posed a serious risk.

The father, originally from Ecuador, has a pending asylum application and no final order of removal, according to his attorneys. The child has lived in Minneapolis since arriving in the United States as a newborn, they said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that agents were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” and alleged that the father had unlawfully reentered the United States. DHS claimed agents attempted to hand the child to her mother, but that she refused—an assertion denied by the family’s lawyers.

The detention comes days after another incident in Minnesota involving the detention of a five-year-old child, drawing criticism of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement practices.

The family’s lawyers have urged the court to issue broader restrictions on transferring detainees out of state, arguing that rapid transfers hinder access to legal counsel and judicial oversight.