Detained by ICE in Minnesota, released in Texas without money, identification or phones

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/30/us/refugees-asylum-seekers-minnesota-detained-ice

They were asylum seekers and refugees in Minnesota. Still, ICE detained and flew them to Texas to face deportation


Two days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota reportedly tackled a home caregiver from sub-Saharan Africa to the snowy pavement and took her away in a van, a close friend made the 1,400-mile journey to a controversial Texas detention facility where she’s being held.

“She was so surprised to see me,” said her friend, Justin, a 40-year-old home caregiver who asked his full name not be used for fear of retaliation. “She never believed that anybody knew where she was.”

She isn’t alone.


Dozens of asylum seekers like her, as well as refugees who passed a rigorous, years-long vetting process before being admitted to the United States, have been arrested in Minnesota in recent weeks, immigration lawyers and advocates say.

The immigrants are shackled and placed on flights to detention facilities in Texas, where they are forced to recount painful asylum claims with limited or no contact with family members or attorneys, lawyers and advocates say. Some, after days of interviews with officers, have been released in Texas without money, identification or phones. Others remain detained without information about why they’re being held.

[Puppyjive]

1. The ignorant republicans don't know the difference

I was called every name in the book by my Republican ex friends when I pointed out that many people who came here were asylum seekers, not illegals They just weren't accepting that. I stopped being friends with them
.

[haele]

8. So many GOP supporters think immigration done the right way means -

The way their grandparents and great grandparents back did - Immigration done "the right way" was coming over decades ago when legal immigration was based on quotas and the color of your skin.
I'm "this close" to asking the office MAGA of Mexican heritage (but light enough to pass as European) why his grandparents "worked the right way" to become Naturalized US citizens (which happened in the 1980's), and what the difference was between their immigration then and immigration now.
Did they have to go back to Mexico for 10 years and apply from there and wait until they were initially adjudicated and given a visa and permission to come across?
Or did Gramps come across the border and get a visa to work, and was able to stay in the country with his Mexican wife and later kids born here while he and his wife went to years classes and immigration hearings to get their Green Card?
How many times were they -and their cohort of "proper way legal immigrants" - able to stay in the country and keep their visas, even if the paperwork got messed up, or they might have missed hearings or had lapses due to schedule and work conflicts, becoming technically "undocumented"? How many of them had temporary deportation orders issued until they could get a hearing and have it rescinded.
My naturalized neighbor and his wife became citizens in the 90's. It was tough, yes, but they knew they weren't going to be deported just because of a paperwork SNAFU or a missed appointment.
The Amnesty program worked the same way back then. Come over, ask for Amnesty, get a sponsor, get your record # to show law enforcement from the immigration court clerk, and make it to your appointments.
Oh, yeah. MAGA decided to change the process that about 7 million people are legally here now because too many "undeserving" people had been abusing the process for almost a century...

His Grandparents are dead now, they don't have to worry about being sent back to Mexico for a missed traffic ticket or mis-identification.

On edit - my Maternal Great Grandfather and his brothers "jumped ship" in Massachusetts coming over from Vasa (Finland) escaping a Tsarist Russian draft in the 1890's by signing on as crew on a Swedish ship bound for New York.
They didn't want to go through Ellis Island and risk being sent back.
They ended up making friends with someone who got them a job in Pennsylvania, and were identified as US citizens born in Finland on the 1910's census.
I don't think that would have been considered legal today...

[Walleye]

2. Sick bastards!

[littlemissmartypants]

3. So heroic of her friend. ❤️

We are now all in an abusive relationship with the US GOVERNMENT.

Look at the similarities:
It's this:



Against this:



I believe misogyny can explain the basis for many of the ills that prevent the species from being civilized and thriving. But that's just me.

[patphil]

4. The casual cruelty of these people is very disturbing; absolutely no love in their hearts; no compassion.

This is Nazism, plain and simple.
And it's just going to get worse.

[Timeflyer]

5. State terror, in the name of law and order.

[lastlib]

6. I'm so SICK of those f*cking FASCISTS!!

HOW in the hell do we GET RID of them??!?

(I'm screaming at a cloud....)

[Joinfortmill]

7. It's a fascist regime.

[Martin68]

9. Outrageous. Inhuman. Illegal.