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.
