Deported Honduran man sues U.S. over St. Paul ICE takedown

A Honduran man who says immigration agents shattered his car window, tore him from the vehicle and violently re-injured his surgically repaired knee during a January takedown at a St. Paul gas station filed a federal lawsuit Thursday seeking more than $1 million from the U.S. government.^[1]

The complaint, filed on behalf of 28-year-old Orbin Mauricio Henriquez Serrano, accuses Immigration and Customs Enforcement and agents involved in the January 11 arrest at a Speedway in St. Paul of assault, battery, false arrest and imprisonment, negligence, negligent supervision, and interference with personal property, and asks a judge to declare that federal officers broke the law when they detained and deported him.^[1]

Henriquez Serrano was arrested during Operation Metro Surge, a Twin Cities enforcement push, in an incident the lawsuit says was led on scene by ICE official Gregory Bovino.^[1] According to the filing, agents smashed the window of his Jeep, pulled him out, threw him to the ground and twisted his previously operated-on knee until he lost consciousness, then carried him to an SUV.^[1]

After the arrest, the lawsuit says, agents took Henriquez Serrano first to the Whipple Federal Building in St. Paul and then to the Camp East Montana facility in El Paso, Texas, where he was given only Tylenol for his injury and deported to Honduras in about a week without ever seeing an immigration judge or a lawyer, despite his status as an asylum seeker.^[1] The suit seeks $1,015,000 in damages for physical and emotional harm, lost income and property damage, and frames the case as part of a broader challenge to what it describes as abusive and rushed deportation practices that leave little room for due process.^[1]

1. FOX 9