MINNESOTA REFORMER: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig calls for release of woman in ICE detention with large ovarian cyst

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig called on the Trump administration on Monday to release a woman in ICE detention who is suffering from a tennis ball-sized ovarian cyst at risk of rupture and needing urgent medical treatment.

“I am not exaggerating when I say that this is a life-or-death situation,” Craig said on Monday.

Craig, a Democrat, was speaking at a news conference along a quiet residential street in Burnsville in her south metro congressional district where the woman was arrested more than two months ago at the height of the Trump administration’s unprecedented immigration crackdown in Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge.

Andrea Pedro-Francisco, who first shared her story with the Reformer, was detained by ICE on her way to work cleaning houses on Feb. 5 and quickly transferred to Camp East Montana, a crowded, disease-ridden tent detention center outside El Paso.

She is one of thousands of immigrants caught up in ICE’s dragnet despite having no criminal record, final order for removal or judicial warrant for her arrest.

Pedro-Francisco came to the United States from Guatemala with her mother in 2019 when she was 16 to seek asylum. She built a life in Burnsville with her mother, becoming involved in a church where she sang in the choir, played guitar and was preparing to become a deacon.

She was detained a week before she was scheduled to have surgery to remove the cyst, which had become so painful that her doctor prescribed opioids. But since being in detention, she has only received Tylenol and ibuprofen.

“For over a month, my office has been going back and forth with ICE officials about Andrea’s condition …  We’ve been ignored, put off, and, frankly, lied to about the treatment she’s received,” said Craig, who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate, running against Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan.

Pedro-Francisco’s case was taken up pro bono by attorney Asra Syed, managing partner at the Austin law firm Botkin Chiarello Calaf, who was referred to Pedro-Francisco’s case through the informal network of volunteer lawyers that sprang up during Operation Metro Surge.

Syed filed a habeas corpus petition to challenge Pedro-Francisco’s detention under the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy. Republican and Democratic-appointed judges have widely ruled against the policy, which is at odds with decades of practice, and ordered immigrants released pending deportation proceedings.

Pedro-Francisco’s petition was denied this month, however, along with scores of others that came before U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower in Texas, highlighting the vastly different outcomes immigrants may face depending on where their cases are heard and before which judge.

“There is still hope for Andrea’s safe return home here to Burnsville if we can persuade the field office director of the El Paso Processing Center, the detention center where Andrea is now being held, to release Andrea on humanitarian grounds,” Syed said at the news conference.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in an email that Pedro-Francisco has been seen by medical staff seven times since being detained and was once transported to an emergency room, where a doctor confirmed the existence of an ovarian cyst.

“ICE maintains longstanding practices to provide comprehensive medical care, including access to vaccines, medical, dental, and mental health services, as well as medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. This is the best health care that many individuals have received in their lives,” DHS said in a statement shared by spokesperson Leticia Zamarripa.

The crowded conditions at Camp East Montana have made it a hotbed of disease, with outbreaks of COVID-19, tuberculosis and the measles.

Three detainees died in the facility in a six-week period, including a man who was suffocated in a struggle with multiple guards. His death was ruled a homicide. Suicide attempts are so common that some guards take bets on which detainee will succeed next, according to a former detainee who spoke to the Associated Press.

ICE recently terminated the $1.3 billion contract with the company operating the facility, Acquisition Logistics, following numerous reports of medical neglect and poor nutrition, including worms in the food.

Syed noted that more than 45 people have died in ICE custody since the start of Trump’s second term, the highest rate in over two decades, according to KFF.

“We are talking about people with treatable conditions — infections, diabetic crises — who were denied care until it was too late. It’s not too late for Andrea yet,” Syed said.

Craig said her office has been working on about 20 cases of people first detained in her district, including five with severe medical issues.

One recently agreed to self-deport after being denied dialysis treatment in detention.

With her Democratic colleagues, Craig sponsored legislation to establish medical care standards for immigrants in detention, but it has stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Pedro-Francisco’s cause has also been taken up by Haven Watch, which started in the days after an ICE agent killed Renee Good in Minneapolis to help immigrants detained by ICE. It has helped coordinate legal representation for Pedro-Francisco in her deportation proceedings in Texas.

“I think of and cry for Andrea day and night. I want her to safely come back to me soon,” Andrea’s mother, Lucia, wrote in a letter read by Haven Watch volunteer Alise Bifulk. “I do not want my daughter to be deported because she and I suffered a lot in our home country.”