Central Minnesota nonprofit leader working to get her brother released from detention
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As founder of an immigrant rights nonprofit in central Minnesota, Ma Elena Gutierrez has been working with volunteers to get food and supplies to people who are afraid to leave their homes. She has also been receiving a stream of messages and calls from people observing ICE actions in her area. Recently, those communications hit even closer to home. She shared her story with Minnesota Now.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full segment.
On Tuesday, Jan. 13, around 7 p.m., Gutierrez received a text from someone who said they had seen ICE officers pull over a car and search and arrest the man who was driving.
“It was so fast,” she said, “less than 10 minutes.”
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Five hours later, she learned her brother was the man who was detained. He had called his wife from the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Bloomington to tell her he had been arrested by ICE and was being sent to a detention center in El Paso, Texas.
“We were in shock, because not having any criminal record, never been in jail, but we know that this is what ICE is doing: arresting people that are doing good here in the state, here in the country,” she said. “They are arresting people like him.”
Gutierrez said her brother has worked in agriculture since he came to the United States. After getting a work permit, he got his commercial driver’s license. She said he was driving from his home in Paynesville, Minn., to his workplace in Cold Spring the evening he was detained.
A lawyer for the family has filed a habeas corpus petition for his release from Camp East Montana in El Paso. According to the petition, he came to the U.S. unlawfully in 2000 and has pending visa applications. The court filing also says he has no criminal history besides minor traffic violations. MPR News is not naming Gutierrez’s brother because he has not been charged with a crime. Immigration violations are civil offenses, not criminal ones.
On Saturday, the family got another update in the form of what Gutierrez said was a two-minute phone call from Camp East Montana. Her brother told the family he was okay, but she remains concerned about his well-being. That’s because another man who had been held there told Gutierrez’s sister-in-law that many detainees are sick, and only the most severe cases receive medical care. For its part, DHS has said ICE provides comprehensive medical treatment to detainees.
“I don't know how he's okay,” Gutierrez said of her brother. “I think he doesn't want us to worry about what is going on.”
It’s been an anxious time for the family that follows a joyous one. At the end of last year, Gutierrez’s brother became a grandfather.
“We got all together to celebrate that the baby will come,” she said. “We were all together just waiting for the baby to be born. And this happened after that.”
Gutierrez said she is trying to remain optimistic and hopeful as she continues to speak out, not only for her brother but other families navigating similar circumstances.
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