ICE agents have detained a two-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis, prompting a frantic fundraiser and intensifying outrage over child detentions.
Minneapolis City Councilmember Jason Chavez said the pair—identified on a GoFundMe page as Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis and her father, Elvis Joel Tipan Echeverria—were stopped and taken by immigration agents while driving home from the grocery store in south Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Thursday.
MinnPost photojournalist Ellen Schmidt posted images to Instagram showing agents surrounding a car as a man believed to be Echeverria clutched his toddler, while bystanders blew whistles, shouted at officers, and appeared to be hit with a chemical irritant as agents tried to leave the scene.
The fundraiser, “Help bring 2-Year-Old Chloe and Her Father Home,” states that both Chloe and her father remain in ICE custody. It does not specify where they are being held or what charges, if any, the father faces.
Chavez, who represents Ward 9 on the Minneapolis City Council, urged supporters to “help us reunite this family,” saying the mother has been left alone trying to navigate immigration court and care costs while her two-year-old sits in detention with her dad.
The fundraiser had pulled in more than $50,000 by Friday morning to cover bond, legal fees, rent, and basic living costs, according to the campaign description.
“With the permission of the mother, we are reaching out to community to help us raise funds for lawyer fees, food, bond requests, rent, livability and resources to keep this family together,” Chavez wrote on the GoFundMe set up on behalf of Chloe’s mother, Deicy Villacis Ruiz. “No family should ever go through this.”
A DHS spokesperson said: “On January 22 at approximately 1:09 PM CT, while conducting a targeted enforcement operation, Border Patrol identified Elvis Tipan-Echeverria, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador who committed felony reentry and broke the laws of this nation. Tipan-Echeverria was driving erratically with a child in the vehicle.
“Tipan-Echeverria later parked his vehicle and agents attempted to take Tipan-Echeverria into custody, but he refused multiple lawful commands to open his door or lower his window. Agents took Tipan-Echeverria into custody and attempted to give the child to the mother who was in the area, but she refused.
“During the arrest, approximately 120 individuals surrounded the agents blocking them in and preventing exit. Agitators in the crowd then began to throw rocks and garbage cans toward the agents and child. To safely clear the area, crowd control measures were deployed. Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.
“DHS law enforcement took care of the child who the mother would not take. Child and father are now reunited a federal facility.”
The case comes as Minnesota reels from a wave of child detentions by federal immigration agents. Columbia Heights Public Schools said four of its students have been picked up by ICE in the past week, including five-year-old preschooler Liam Ramos, who was taken into custody with his father after school pick-up in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights.
School officials say masked ICE agents removed Liam from his father’s car, walked him to his front door, and had him knock to see who else was home—effectively using the five-year-old “as bait”—before transporting him and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back, claiming on local TV and in statements that Liam’s father “fled on foot” and “abandoned his child,” and insisting that “ICE did NOT target a child” and that an officer stayed with the boy for his safety.
School board chair Mary Granlund has publicly disputed the department’s description, saying she was present at the scene and that multiple adults offered to take care of Liam, but agents still drove him away.
The Minnesota raids are part of a massive federal surge that sent more than 2,000 Department of Homeland Security personnel into the state after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old mother of three Renée Good during an operation in Minneapolis earlier this month.
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