Nursing mother in ICE custody in Minnesota to be released from detention, judge rules
Antonia Aguilar Maldonado, 26, was arrested by federal agents on July 17. She came to the United States from El Salvador as a teenager and has no criminal history. She is now seeking asylum and lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota.
Her attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus challenging her detention because an immigration judge authorized her release on bond on July 31. Soon after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security then filed an automatic stay to keep her in custody at the Kandiyohi County Jail despite that order.
They sought injunctive relief to block that from taking effect and require her release while her case moves forward. Hannah Brown, one of her attorneys, told the court Tuesday that her client is experiencing emotional and mental distress while separated from her two U.S. citizen children, including her youngest whom she is breastfeeding.
She also said she faces physical harm because she cannot pump on a set schedule or in sanitary conditions.
U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson delivered a ruling from the bench in St. Paul after each side made their arguments, ultimately granting the request for a temporary restraining order which will force her release. She rejected the government's argument that Aguilar Maldonado's detention was allowable by law and said ICE violated its own policies for pregnant and nursing mothers.
Nelson said ICE contends that a January executive order from President Donald Trump revoked that rule, but "nowhere in that policy is there a mention of nursing mothers."
"In the court's view, the irreparable harm to separating a nursing mother and her child is self-evident," she said.
She added that her case is a civil matter yet Aguilar Maldonado is being held in conditions "indiscriminable" to criminal detention and that agents made a "mistake" when they arrested her.
A written ruling will follow later this week. Aguilar Maldonado's attorneys said she will be released as soon as she posts bond, likely early Wednesday morning.
The court room was packed with friends, congregants at Aguilar Maldonado's local church and other community members who observed the hearing. They erupted into applause once it was over, celebrating her release.
Her church helped raise money to pay her bond.
"A lot of people can relate to Ms. Aguilar Maldonado's situation and to her story. And there are folks here who know her and folks here who don't know her," Brown said. "And I think it was really beautiful to see so many people, so many Minnesotans, showing their support for a young mother who does not need to be detained."
Aguilar Maldonado came to the U.S. in 2017 as a minor, granting her special protections, and had a removal order in 2019 for failing to attend a hearing.
But an immigration judge reopened her case last year after finding she wasn't given notice of that court appearance, Gloria Contreras Edin, another one of her attorneys told WCCO in an interview.
Since then, she has been doing "everything right," she added, and filed for asylum and obtained work authorization. Her arrest on July 17 came as a surprise.
When asked about Aguilar Maldonado's case, a spokesperson for ICE provided the following statement to WCCO: "By statute, we have no information on this person."
"[Her son] is allergic to other forms of milk, and so unfortunately, this baby has been without his mother's milk now for 26 days, and she wants to get to him right away and start nursing," Contreras Edin told reporters Tuesday.
Contreras Edin and Brown said she will remain free as her writ of habeas corpus petition proceeds. The government is also appealing the immigration judge's earlier ruling late last month.
The judge said she does not have a removal order at this time.
Telma Vides, a friend of Aguilar Maldonado, spoke with her friend soon after the hearing and said she was excited and crying nonstop when she learned that should be released.
"It's just amazing what God can do to get her out," Vides said. "It just kept going up and down and up—it's been a roller coaster all these three weeks."
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