Minneapolis family shares story of ‘violent’ ICE detainment and 10 months of separation
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Not every arrest by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement during Operation Metro Surge brought out the crowds in Minnesota.
Some arrests were loud: residents blowing whistles to alert others, taunting masked ICE officers on the streets and chanting support for immigrants.
But in the case of Marjorie Flores and her husband of 15 years, Luis Caiza, there was silence the day ICE came to Maple Grove.
It was Jan. 10 just before 7 a.m. and the temperature was 19 degrees. Flores remembers the roads were iced over; she felt it when she was yanked out of the car by ICE agents.
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Flores spoke to MPR News in an interview conducted in Spanish. She said she saw no cars or people nearby that day when it was usually a busy stretch of road. No rapid response teams. No cameras or whistles.
Flores and Caiza, immigrants from Ecuador, were stopped at a red traffic light on their way to work at McDonald’s. Suddenly, a black vehicle appeared, she said. The car blocked them and four ICE officers emerged from the vehicle.
“They got out in a very violent manner with their weapons, they pointed them at us, they broke the car window,” she said. “They didn't say a word; they went straight to violence.”
Flores recalls officers then pulled out Caiza. She described what she said was a “horrifying scene.”
“They threw him to the ground like he was some kind of hardened criminal,” she said. “They put a knee on his back and started kicking and beating him while he was already on the ground.”
She said the officers would lift him up again only to throw him back down.
“I don’t know exactly why they reacted that way. If they wanted to take us in, there was no need for violence.”
Flores said she knew she was next.
She recalled being yanked out of the car and hitting her knee on the door’s frame. It didn’t hurt right away, she said.
Immediately afterward, an agent grabbed her and threw her to the icy ground.
“My elbows got hurt because they handle you so roughly,” Flores said.
The officers had “no compassion at all,” she said. “They are extremely violent. They don't care if you’re a woman or anything; they just grab and throw you.”
After she was shoved to the frozen street, Flores said the agent picked her up again by her collar on the backside of her neck. Then, he’d push again onto the ground.
“It was like handling a doll — standing it up, knocking it down, tearing it apart — that’s exactly how they treated me,” she said.
When she tried to check on her husband, she was face down and her neck movements were limited. She said an the agent had what she described as a rifle, pointed to her head, back and shoulders.
“I was scared if there was one wrong move or something, we’d be killed,” Flores said.
Flores said she prayed to God when she felt what she thinks was a gun touch.. Her husband and their kids — Camila, 18, Sneyder, 13, and Emilio, 10 — were the only people on her mind.
“That was the terrifying part — the fear that they might take me too, and not knowing what would happen to my kids. If they took him as well, who would look after them?” she said. “It was the fear more than anything.”
At one point, she managed to get up on her knees and made her way to the agent. Then, she touched his legs to balance herself and stood on her knee.
She clasped her hands in prayer and then addressed the ICE officer in her accented English: “Three babies in my house.”
He pushed her down one last time as a large pickup truck approached. The agents met up at their car and put Caiza inside. They left her on the street, and the pickup truck driver stopped to help her.
The Department of Homeland Security would not confirm the details of the detainment to MPR News without “necessary specific information.” MPR News provided the date, time and location of the detainment, but did not provide their names before publication to prevent retaliation.
Toxic stress of detainment on families
Family separation can lead to disruptions in children’s lives, which research shows can result in high levels of stress among children. That stress can disrupt their hormones and sometimes increase the risk of infections among children.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics has identified fear of parental deportation and separation as a toxic stress, which adversely affects a child’s development,” said Drishti Pillai, the director of immigration health policy at KFF, a nonprofit organization that focuses on national health issues and U.S. global health policy.
Pillai said family separation can lead to lifelong negative impacts on physical, mental and behavioral health.
“Over the long term, toxic stress, stress due to family separation, it can manifest as poor coping skills and stress management,” said Drishti Pillai, the director of immigration health policy at KFF, a nonprofit organization that focuses on national health issues and U.S. global health policy.
It may lead to an “unhealthy life, sometimes adoption of risky behaviors, and of course the mental health impacts, depression, post-traumatic stress for not only for the individual who is detained, but for family members who may have witnessed” a detainment arrest.
Pillai said the Caiza Flores family sounds like many she has encountered in her research.
“One of the most immediate and significant effects on families when a family member is detained is the loss of income,” she said.
That can leave them struggling to pay bills, including rent, food, utilities and can take a strain on their health and well-being, she said.
Family separation can also lead to older children sometimes assuming new responsibilities or changing plans such as no longer attending college in order to support the family.
That’s the case for their 18-year-old daughter Camila, who graduated from high school and now works full-time at a local fast-food chain. She’s her mother’s deputy, helping out with her brothers and household costs.
“It makes me very sad for my mom because she’s trying to give us everything, even though we have almost nothing,” she said. “I also feel bad because, sure, I help her, but I feel like I need to do more — I just don't know how … I try to spend time with my brothers, but sometimes I can't because I work so much.”
Keeping the family together despite separation
Flores lives in a four-bedroom rental in Minneapolis with her children. She has withheld the violent details from the boys about the January arrest. She doesn’t want to add to their constant concern for their father.
The brothers are already upset that their “Papa” is not around. When Caiza was first detained, he’d call the boys over FaceTime, but according to Flores, his sons would cry seeing their father with bruises on his face. Flores quickly put an end to the video calls. Now they only talk by phone.
She hasn’t told his parents in Ecuador that he has been detained for nearly 10 months. Caiza’s mother has a heart condition, and his father suffers from Alzheimer’s. His mother doesn’t know that the money they receive every month from their son is actually from Flores.
“They’re elderly, so breaking news like that — telling them their son is detained — could cause their health to deteriorate even further,” she said. “That’s why I have to work the way I do, to make ends meet.”
Almost ten months after that life-altering day, Flores said she has been doing everything possible to keep her family together. She works three jobs, seven days a week, all to make up for the loss of Caiza’s salary.
Her 93-hour work week has resulted in perpetual exhaustion, guilt and almost no quality time with her kids.
“I spend more time at work than at home because, given the situation, if I only had one job, I wouldn't be able to cover the rent or the kids' expenses,” she said.
The couple and their three children left Ecuador in June 2023 and entered the United States the following month to seek asylum under a Biden-era program. The couple received work permits from the government.
No one in the family has a criminal record, according to their attorney and MPR News reporting. But Flores said on the day of the arrest, she and Caiza were treated like criminals. His detention has now reached nearly 10 months. The arrest has brought painful struggles for the family: legal, financial and emotional.
She also said she’s afraid to take their sons out for a drive on Sunday, the only day of the week she is free. Flores said she's tired most of the time because of her busy work schedule. She worries she could fall asleep at the wheel and cause an accident.
“Sometimes no one understands how hard all this is, the weight I’m carrying. I can’t afford the luxury of getting sick — because for me, it really is a luxury,” she said. “If I get sick, I don’t get my paycheck. Of course, it’s not a huge amount, but for me, it’s a lot because now I have enough to cover expenses — or in case they get sick.”
Flores said her children “are always the priority — before me. It’s always going to be them.”
Caiza lost an appeal on his asylum claims last month but will appeal again. A few days after the appeal was lost, Flores received notice from immigration court to appear with the children before a judge this week.
