ICE sends detained 2-yr-old from Minnesota to Texas detention center despite judge’s release order

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis, a 2-year-old girl, was taken into custody by ICE agents in south Minneapolis while she was on her way home from a grocery store with her father, Elvis Joel Tipan Echeverria, on Thursday, January 22.

A district judge, Kathy Menendez, issued an emergency order stating that Chloe must remain in the state. The order also said the child must be released to her family’s lawyer by a set deadline, because the judge warned she could suffer serious harm if moved out of the state. As per reports, the federal agency did not share the child’s name, age, or gender.

However, just minutes after that order was signed, ICE put Chloe and her father on a flight to a detention center in Texas instead. This incident comes shortly after ICE detained a 5-year-old boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, and his father in the area.

2‑year‑old and father taken by ICE despite court order for child’s release 

The 2-year-old girl, identified in court documents as CRTV, and her father, were taken into ICE custody. DHS said the two were detained at 1 pm during a “targeted enforcement operation,” according to ABC 5. They also said Elvis Joel Tipan Echeverria is an Ecuadorian immigrant accused of returning to the country illegally.

DHS said he was driving dangerously with the child and refused to exit the vehicle. Agents tried to hand the girl to her mother nearby, but she declined. DHS confirmed that the child and father are now together at a federal facility,

Following the detention, family attorney Kira Kelley filed an emergency petition at 5:37 pm requesting their release. Around 6:30 pm, she filed a motion to stop the transfer of the toddler out of Minnesota and to order her release, NBC News reported. Kelley said she called ICE counsel but did not receive a response.

By 8:10 pm, District Judge Menendez ordered ICE not to remove the two from Minnesota and directed that the toddler be returned to Kelley by 9:30 pm, according to the affidavit. But that never happened. At 8:30 pm, ICE told the court the girl and her father were placed on a commercial flight to Texas. A government attorney later said the child would be returned to Minnesota, as per NBC News.

Another attorney for the family, CEO of Groundwork Legal, Irina Vaynerman, told The Star Tribune, “To me, that is clearly part of this effort to try to evade the court’s jurisdiction. We have never seen this level of depravity with a 2-year-old.”

Vaynerman called the incident “a horror that is a parent’s worst nightmare. All they want is for this little toddler and her dad to come home safe after they’ve been unlawfully detained by the government.”

5‑year-old and his father detained in Twin Cities ICE raids

Just days before the arrest of 2‑year‑old Chloe and her father, 5‑year‑old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were also taken into ICE custody. Liam and his father had just arrived home when they were detained, as per The Guardian. A preschooler and his father were detained in their driveway, the Columbia Heights school superintendent said.

These detentions are part of Operation Metro Surge, a large immigration enforcement campaign in Minnesota that has arrested thousands of people without legal status since December.