STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A 5-year-old picked up by immigration authorities turns out to be one of many. People on social media have seen a photo of the boy in a blue bunny hat with a federal agent's hand on his backpack. He was sent with his father from Minnesota to a detention facility in Texas some days ago. Elizabeth Shockman of Minnesota Public Radio has been reporting on other children detained by ICE in similar ways. Welcome to the program.
ELIZABETH SHOCKMAN, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: Who have you identified?
SHOCKMAN: We've been following the stories of several kids, one of them as young as 2. Federal agents detained them with their parents. Agents are taking them in driveways and on commutes to school. In the cases that we're tracking, families have some sort of lawful presence in the United States. What lawyers from these families are saying is that ICE is flying these detainees out of Minnesota within hours. In some cases, they're doing so without allowing them legally required access to a lawyer. I called Brian Clark about this. He's a lawyer who's representing a first-grader and a seventh-grader. They were sent to Texas with their parents despite a judge's order that they remain in Minnesota.
BRIAN CLARK: We can't get to all these arrests. And they know if they move fast enough, fly them out within hours to Texas, we won't even know about the existence of everybody.
SHOCKMAN: Clark is an antitrust lawyer in Minnesota, not an immigration lawyer, but earlier this month, he attended an emergency training in immigration law. He's helping because there are not enough immigration lawyers to handle so many cases.
INSKEEP: Wow. Do you know where in Texas these children are being sent?
SHOCKMAN: Many of them are being sent to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. Liam Conejo Ramos, that 5-year-old you mentioned earlier, was sent there from Minnesota with his dad last week. I spoke to Liam's mom, Erika (ph), this week, together with my colleague who speaks Spanish. Liam's mom told us that Liam is getting sick. He has stomach pain. He's vomiting. He has a fever, and he no longer wants to eat.
INSKEEP: So that's one story, but you said there are other children there as well.
SHOCKMAN: There are. We don't know how many. But a lawyer in Texas who focuses on providing legal services to immigrants told me that the number of families she's representing from Minnesota has grown in recent weeks, but she doesn't know how many children from the state are currently being held at Dilley.
INSKEEP: What do immigration authorities say?
SHOCKMAN: ICE has not yet responded to my questions regarding any allegations made by lawyers who are working with the families. And that includes the claim that many of the people at Dilley currently have pathways to legal residency. Sam Doiron is an attorney for RAICES, which is an organization that provides legal assistance to immigrants. She told me that now, unlike in past administrations, families are being held in immigration detention instead of being released. Many of their detentions also violate a 30-year-old federal agreement that requires the government to provide safe and sanitary conditions to detain children. It also forbids them from holding children for more than 20 days.
INSKEEP: You said people are being raced out of state. Are courts able to get involved and able to keep up with the volume of cases here?
SHOCKMAN: Courts in Minnesota are scrambling to keep up with the more than 450 habeas corpus petitions that have been filed since an escalation in the surge of federal activity began in Minnesota back on January 5. Of course, habeas petitions challenge the legality of a detention. A courtroom deputy for U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz told me this week that Minnesota has had to call in four additional federal judges. They're from Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and North Dakota, and they are helping handle the legal challenges tied to immigration detentions that are flooding Minnesota courts.
INSKEEP: Elizabeth Shockman, thanks so much for your reporting.
SHOCKMAN: Thanks for having me on.
INSKEEP: Now, In Minnesota, Judge Patrick Schlitz issued a ruling on one of those habeas cases on Wednesday. He said in the last month, ICE had violated at least 96 court orders. Here's a quote, "ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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