A federal judge ruled Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must release a Minneapolis man and asylum seeker who has been illegally detained for 50 days.
The man, identified as Elvis Joel TE in court documents, was arrested on January 22 at the height of aggressive ICE raids in Minneapolis. The case sparked widespread outrage when Elvis TE was detained with his two-year-old daughter while walking home from the store, and ICE quickly took them both to Texas despite a court order prohibiting their transfer out of Minnesota.
His young daughter was released to her mother the next day in response to a judge’s order, but the father, who is from Ecuador, remains detained, despite having a pending asylum case.
U.S. Judge Katherine Menendez ruled Friday that there was no basis to keep Elvis TE in custody, saying he “was not properly detained” under laws cited by the government.
U.S. Border Patrol agents detained Elvis TE near Brownsville, Texas, in May 2024, shortly after he crossed the border, at which time he requested asylum, the judge wrote. He was then granted humanitarian parole, meaning he was allowed to remain in the United States while his asylum application moved through the process.
The government argued that he should remain detained until a ruling was made on his case, but the judge rejected those arguments, noting that he was not subject to mandatory detention and that officers did not have a warrant to arrest him in the first place.
The circumstances surrounding the arrest and detention of a young child were particularly cruel and unjustified, attorneys said.
As the father and daughter arrived home on the afternoon of Jan. 22, officers entered the backyard and driveway without a warrant and broke the glass window of the father’s car while the girl was inside, one of their attorneys wrote in an affidavit.
The girl’s mother was at the door of the house calling for her partner, who was trying to bring her daughter to her, the lawyer said. When ICE agents approached the mother, she went inside and the officers allegedly refused to allow Elvis TE “to take his daughter to her mother or the other family members who were waiting in terror inside the house.”
The father and child were then placed in an ICE vehicle, which did not have a car seat, the family’s attorney said.
The arrest sparked protests from community members gathered outside, prompting officers to implement “crowd control measures,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said at the time. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported at the time that officers appeared to use chemical irritants and explosive devices.
Shortly after the arrest, lawyers filed an emergency petition demanding his release. Menendez, the Minnesota-based federal judge, issued an order that night prohibiting the government from transferring them out of state, which could impede the family’s ability to challenge their detention. The judge also ordered the girl’s immediate release due to the “risk of irreparable harm,” writing of the little girl: “Needless to say, she has no criminal record.”
But the government put them on a flight to Texas about 20 minutes after the judge ruled they could not be deported, the lawyers said. The government brought them both back to Minnesota the next day, but kept the father detained.
The judge on Friday ordered that he be released no later than Sunday.
“Our client was separated from his family and has been illegally detained for 50 days and it has completely devastated him,” Chelsea Walcker, one of Elvis TE’s attorneys, said by phone shortly after the ruling.
Walcker, legal director of Groundwork Legal, a Minnesota-based public interest law firm, said that “the abuse of government authority was evident at every step of the case”: “They broke into his car with his two-year-old daughter inside. They arrested him without a warrant. They put him on a plane in violation of a court order. They then held him, illegally, without any legal basis for months, separated from his partner and his daughter.”
The toll on the family was severe, Walcker said. The girl, he noted, was separated from her mother for the first time during the chaotic arrest. When the judge ordered her release, but not her father’s, her lawyers had to temporarily take custody of her to bring her home.
“It was horrible. She’s two years old. She didn’t understand what was happening. She had to be torn from her father’s arms to be returned to her mother,” Walcker said. “That will stay with her for the rest of her life. That’s something no child should have to experience.”
Spokespeople for DHS and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions. At the time of Elvis TE’s arrest, a DHS spokesperson called him an “illegal immigrant,” said he had been “driving erratically,” and claimed that the girl’s mother had refused to give her a ride.
Walcker expressed gratitude to the judge for recognizing that the detention was illegal, but noted, “Many other families never have this opportunity.”
Unlike Elvis TE, others arrested by ICE in Minnesota have been transferred out of state before they can obtain representation or file a petition challenging their detention, making it much more difficult for them to fight their cases, Walcker said.
His arrest came the same week that ICE detained five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, and photos of the detained boy sparked a global reaction. He and his father were sent to Texas and later released after a congressman’s defense.
“Families are being taken off the streets and missing from their workplaces and communities,” Walcker said. “Lives are being destroyed and the government must be held accountable.”
