Federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Thursday detained a two-year-old girl and her father and sent them to Texas, court documents and lawyers said, in a chilling account of the incident.
Elvis Joel Tee and his two-year-old daughter were returning from a store around 1 p.m. Thursday when ICE agents detained them. The family's lawyers have alleged that the ICE agents had no warrant.
An ICE agent broke the car window while the child was inside. The child's mother was standing nearby. But the agents prevented the father from handing the girl over to her mother.
The child was taken away in an immigration vehicle.
After the incident became known, lawyers filed an emergency petition in court. At around 8:10 p.m., a federal judge ruled that the father and daughter could not be sent out of Minnesota. He also ordered the child to be released by 9:30 p.m. The judge commented, "Needless to say, this child has no criminal history."
But government officials ignored the court order and flew them to a detention center in Texas at around 8:30 p.m.
Lawyer Irina Weinerman said the child was returned to Minnesota and handed over to her mother on Friday afternoon after a lengthy legal battle. However, the father, Elvis Joel, remains in custody in Minnesota.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that the child's father was driving recklessly. He entered the United States illegally. They also claim that the child's mother refused to take him.
But lawyers have dismissed the Department of Homeland Security's claim as false. They say ICE agents prevented the child from being reunited with his mother. Agents used chemical gas and flash bangs to disperse the angry crowd during the arrest.
"This atrocity is beyond words," said the family's lawyer, Weinerman. "No parent can endure the horror of being separated from their child. No one knows what the long-term effects will be on this young child."
Lawyers allege that ICE members are rapidly removing people to other states so that they cannot access legal assistance and are beyond the reach of the courts.
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