MINNESOTA REFORMER: Texas judge denies petition to release woman detained in Minnesota with medical condition

A woman arrested in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge must remain in an immigration detention facility in Texas pending deportation proceedings even as she suffers excruciating pain from a large ovarian cyst at risk of rupture, a federal judge ruled.

Andrea Pedro-Francisco was detained in Burnsville without a warrant on her way to work cleaning houses on Feb. 5 — a week before she was scheduled for surgery to remove the cyst, which if left untreated could result in the loss of her ovary.

Despite having no final order for removal and no criminal record since entering the United States in 2019 as a 16-year-old, the federal government transferred her to a crowded, disease-ridden detention facility in El Paso along with thousands of other immigrants caught up in the Trump administration’s deportation dragnet.

A pro bono attorney filed a lawsuit known as a habeas corpus petition on behalf of Pedro-Francisco in Texas, arguing the federal government could not legally detain her without bond, calling her detention an “expensive and pointless endeavor.”

U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower, a Biden appointee, disagreed and denied her petition for release along with dozens of others in early April in nearly identical orders, noting that more than 300 similar petitions had been filed with his court.

“This (decision) is deeply disappointing, not just because the stakes were so high but we’re disappointed that she never got an individualized assessment,” said Asra Syed, managing partner at the Austin law firm Botkin Chiarello Calaf, who represented Pedro-Francisco. “He doesn’t even say her name.”

Pedro-Francisco’s case demonstrates how immigrants may face dramatically different outcomes depending on where their cases are heard and before which judge, underscoring the power of judicial discretion during the Trump administration’s drive for mass deportation.

Pedro-Francisco would likely be at home in Burnsville and already recovered from surgery had she not been transferred so quickly out of Minnesota. Federal judges in Minnesota have largely rebelled against the Trump administration’s detention of immigrants en masse and repeated violations of their judicial orders for release.

Schydlower’s decision cites a recent ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — which applies to Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — that endorses the Trump administration’s legal interpretation of a 1996 law justifying its policy of mandatory detention.

Contrary to three decades of practice, the Trump administration holds that undocumented immigrants can be held in detention without the opportunity for bond during deportation proceedings, even if they were paroled into the country after seeking asylum and have lived in the country for years.

That interpretation has been widely rejected by federal district court judges, including by Trump’s own appointees, though it also recently found success before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Minnesota. The issue is likely to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Even with the 5th Circuit decision, Pedro-Francisco may have been ordered released had her case gone before other judges in Texas, who have granted habeas corpus petitions on due process grounds.

Schydlower also used his discretion to delay habeas corpus proceedings, allowing the federal government more than three weeks from when Pedro-Francisco’s petition was filed to respond instead of three days.

In the interim, Pedro-Francisco said she was subjected to hellish living conditions in Camp East Montana, a troubled tent detention facility that was erected last summer on the site of a former World War II-era detention center for Japanese-Americans.

Detainees say they have found worms in the food, the roof leaks when it rains, and medical care is virtually non-existent. Three detainees died in the facility in a six-week period, including a man who was suffocated in a struggle with multiple guards.

Conditions at the facility became so poor that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently terminated the $1.3 billion contract with the company operating the facility, Acquisition Logistics, which had never run an ICE detention facility before.

Pedro-Francisco’s cause was taken up by U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, who tried to leverage her position in Congress to pressure ICE to have her evaluated and treated by a specialist.

Pedro-Francisco said she was examined by a man in the detention center who conducted an ultrasound. But he wouldn’t tell her his name.

She was recently moved to the El Paso Processing Center, but her lawyer said she is still only receiving Tylenol and ibuprofen — along with birth control and an antidepressant — despite being prescribed oxycodone by her doctor in Minnesota.

“Andrea’s treatment in ICE custody is unacceptable and beyond the pale,” Craig said in a statement. “I will not stop working to protect Andrea’s rights and get her the critical health care she needs.”

While awaiting deportation proceedings, ICE officials frequently offer detainees another way out: self-deport.

So far Pedro-Francisco has denied voluntary removal because she wants to return to her mother and siblings in Minnesota, rather than her native Guatemala.

Many others have agreed to self-deport, including a man from Minnesota whose lawyer said he only agreed because he was suffering a medical emergency after being denied medication for diabetes.

Pedro-Francisco’s mother, who remains in Minnesota with her two youngest children, said she’s still trying to accept that her daughter will not be released — at least not soon. Despite feeling despair over her daughter’s detention over the past two months, she allowed herself to feel hopeful and trust the court process.

Schydlower had even scheduled a hearing in Pedro-Francisco’s case for April 8 before canceling it with his order denying her petition for release.

“I’ve been feeling a bit happy because I’ve been waiting for her,” said Pedro-Francisco’s mother, who was granted anonymity for fear of ICE reprisals.

“But now, hearing this news makes me feel even sadder, because there’s no one left who’s going to be with me. I’m going to be left all alone, just with my two children.”