Agents detain and send 2-year-old girl and her father to Texas despite court order to release toddler

A 2-year-old girl and her father were detained by federal immigration agents in south Minneapolis and placed on a commercial flight out of Minnesota, despite a judge ordering the toddler’s release.

The father, Elvis Joel Tipan Echeverria, was detained near Powderhorn Park on Thursday, Jan. 22, while returning home from a grocery store with his daughter, according to lawyers for the family. Video circulating on social media appeared to show agents using chemical irritants and flash-bang devices as crowds gathered at the scene.

The attorneys filed an emergency motion seeking immediate release of the father and daughter. They said the two were asylum seekers who were pulled over without a warrant and did not have a final order for removal.

The case was quickly assigned to a judge, who signed an order for the toddler’s release at 8:10 p.m. Jan. 22, attorney Irina Vaynerman said.

Roughly 20 minutes later, the lawyers learned the child and her father had already been placed on the flight to Texas. They were transferred out of state within about eight hours of their detainment.

“To me, that is clearly part of this effort to try to evade the court’s jurisdiction,” said Vaynerman, the CEO of Groundwork Legal. “We have never seen this level of depravity with a 2-year-old.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that agents took Tipan Echeverria into custody “and attempted to give the child to the mother who was in the area, but she refused.”

A 5-year-old boy in Columbia Heights was detained this week with his father and sent to a Texas facility in a case that’s drawn international attention and scrutiny. The preschooler is the fourth student in the Columbia Heights school district to be detained by agents, district officials said.

Then on Jan. 22, two students in the Hopkins school district were detained by ICE agents along with their parents, school leaders said.

In previous statements, the DHS said ICE doesn’t separate families, adding: “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or if they would like ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”

In a new statement responding to questions about the Minneapolis 2-year-old’s detention, the DHS said that agents were “conducting a targeted enforcement operation, [when] Border Patrol identified Elvis Tipan-Echeverria, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador who committed felony reentry.”

According to the DHS, Tipan Echeverria was driving erratically and refused commands to open his vehicle door. Approximately 120 people surrounded federal agents during the detainment, throwing rocks and garbage cans, prompting the use of crowd-control measures, the agency said in its statement.

Court records identify the child only by her initials.

Vaynerman said the father was not allowed to speak with attorneys before he and his daughter were transferred — a practice Vaynerman described as increasingly common in immigration detention cases.

Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez said in a statement to the Star Tribune that “ICE continues to say that they are going after criminals, but they took a two year old baby, her father, and separated a family.”