Minnesota ICE Surge

A federal judge has temporarily barred ICE from deporting or transferring 5‑year‑old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, ordering they remain in the Western District of Texas while litigation proceeds; the pair are being held at the Dilley family detention center and have a pending immigration court (asylum) case docketed Dec. 17, 2024. The Minnesota arrest that led to their transfer has prompted competing accounts — Columbia Heights school officials and the family allege agents used the boy as “bait” to lure others, while DHS says the father fled and “abandoned” the child — fueling broader scrutiny of ICE’s tactics.

U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Schiltz ordered acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to appear in person for a show‑cause contempt hearing after ICE failed to provide a bond hearing or release Ecuadorian detainee Juan Hugo Tobay Robles — conduct Schiltz said was one of “dozens” of recent violations tied to the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge that has caused significant hardship. Separately, Schiltz and his wife have long donated to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and Mid‑Minnesota Legal Aid — a fact that has drawn conservative scrutiny over potential recusal even as Schiltz says he supports legal representation for the poor — and he has previously clashed with DOJ in other high‑profile Minnesota matters.

As more than 2,000 federal immigration agents sweep Minneapolis–St. Paul in an Operation Metro Surge that DHS says has produced over 3,000 arrests since early December, local residents have quietly built ad hoc "underground railroad" networks to shelter families and children fearing detention. The piece follows the Indigenous Ecuadorian family of Melida Rita Wampash Tuntuam—detained despite only minor traffic offenses—whose 20‑ and 22‑year‑old children moved seven younger siblings, including a 5‑month‑old baby, into a south Minneapolis safe house after masked ICE officers twice surrounded their home. Christian nonprofit Source MN and volunteers like factory worker and mother of five Feliza Martinez are paying rent, delivering food and setting up emergency custody plans so U.S.-based children are not taken into government care if parents are seized; Martinez says she now gets terrified calls from immigrant families "every single day." The article also reports allegations that ICE agents broke down doors without judicial warrants and came to the family home after promising to send a social worker, deepening mistrust and fueling the broader wave of protests, business shutdowns and school absences already documented in Minnesota. The story captures how a federal enforcement campaign that Washington sells as targeting criminals is, at street level, fracturing mixed-status households and pitting fearful neighborhoods and church networks against a heavily militarized federal presence.

The 8th Circuit granted an administrative stay pausing U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez’s preliminary injunction — which barred federal agents in Minnesota from using pepper spray or nonlethal munitions on peaceful protesters, arresting peaceful protesters, or stopping or detaining drivers and passengers near protests without reasonable articulable suspicion — while the government pursues an appeal. The injunction, filed by the ACLU on behalf of six community members (one plaintiff, Susan Tincher, said she was handcuffed within 15 seconds of arriving and held for five hours), came amid deployment of thousands of federal agents to Minneapolis and has drawn political reactions, with Attorney General Pam Bondi calling the stay a victory and reports noting ICE guidance asserting broader force and entry authorities.