Columbia Heights fourth-grader released after a month in ICE detention

A Columbia Heights fourth-grader and her mother have been released from a Texas detention center after school officials and the governor called for their release.

Luis Zuna, the child’s father, told Sahan Journal that his wife and daughter had been released from the Dilley Immigration Processing Center Tuesday evening. He said he felt “very happy, very relieved.” His daughter, 10-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano, missed her school, he said.

They are currently in a shelter, and he hopes they will return to Minnesota tomorrow. Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, said in a statement that the timing of their return might be uncertain, given the measles outbreak in Dilley and the possible need for a quarantine period.

Earlier in the day, at a news conference at the Minnesota Capitol, school officials and Gov. Tim Walz had called for Elizabeth’s release. 

Highland Park Elementary School social worker Tracy Xiong described the day that Elizabeth was detained. On the first Tuesday in January, Elizabeth called her father to tell him that immigration agents were bringing her to school.

Zuna, panicked, rushed to Highland Elementary School to wait for the fourth-grader. He and school staff waited at the Columbia Heights elementary school for hours. 

But Elizabeth never came to school that day. By the afternoon, she and her mother were already in Texas. By Tuesday, they had been at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and both mother and daughter had fallen ill.

“In my profession, I have seen many people break down in grief, but that image of Elizabeth’s father will stay with me forever,” Xiong said. “I watched him sit in his car, bury his head in his hands, and cry uncontrollably. Those are images you do not forget.”

As state and school district leaders celebrated the return of another Columbia Heights child, preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos, from ICE custody in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, they noted that Liam’s case was not isolated. They called for the return of other Minnesota children — including Elizabeth. 

In Columbia Heights Public Schools alone, six students have been taken by ICE. Two, including Liam, have returned home. Elizabeth is now in a shelter in Texas with her mother. Three others remain in immigration detention; school officials believe all are at Dilley. The other detained students are a 17-year-old high school student and a pair of brothers in second and fifth grade. School officials have not released their names.

Walz said he had sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asking for detailed information about all individuals detained or arrested in Minnesota, prioritizing information about detained children.

“We don’t know how many others are in the same situation that didn’t get a photo that went viral,” Walz said, referring to the photo of Liam in a blue bunny hat, an ICE agent’s hand on his Spiderman backpack. “These are our children that were taken from us, sent to Texas in the middle of the night, put into inhumane conditions … forcing judges to tell them to bring them back home.”

He noted recent reports of measles cases at Dilley and stressed the need for an urgent solution.

“Elizabeth needs to be home today,” he said. “These children need to be accounted for today.”

A habeas corpus petition was filed for Elizabeth and her mother in federal court on Monday, after they had spent nearly a month in detention. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, the same judge who freed Liam and his father from detention at Dilley, has ordered that Elizabeth and her mother cannot be deported while the case proceeds.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said that Elizabeth’s mother, Rosa Elena Caisaguano Cajilema, had a final order of removal.

“Upon discovering a child was in the car, officers allowed her to make phone calls to place the child in the custody of someone she designated,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “She failed to find a trusted adult to care for the child, so officers kept the family together for the welfare of the child.”

The DHS spokesperson did not explain why, after Elizabeth successfully made contact with her father, she was not given over to his care.

Carolina Gutierrez, the principal secretary at Highland Elementary and the school’s main contact with Elizabeth’s father, said the family was not aware of any final order of removal. She said they had applied for asylum, and while their application was denied, they appealed it. They’ve also applied for a U visa, which helps immigrants who help law enforcement after falling victim to a crime, she said. Elizabeth’s mom was the victim of a carjacking.

Gutierrez described Elizabeth as a “quiet but strong presence” who loves volleyball, dreams of becoming a doctor, and often comes off the school bus in the morning giggling with a friend, “two 10-year-old girls just giggling and being happy to be at school.”

She watched that friend react the day Elizabeth didn’t come to school.

“She knew something was wrong because she saw Dad inside of the school,” Gutierrez said. “Seeing that panic in her face that she knew something had happened to her friend, and she confirmed it by looking at Dad frantically looking for Elizabeth.”

She said Elizabeth, who has attended Highland Elementary School since kindergarten, has been focused on learning English — and that she was the one in the car able to communicate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in English, while explaining what was happening to her parents in Spanish.

Gutierrez said she’d been present with Zuna Monday night while he called his wife and daughter. 

“They’re both sick right now,” Gutierrez said. “She has no access to any medical care.” Elizabeth has flu-like symptoms, while her mom has broken out in hives, Gutierrez said. Neither has been given any medicine or testing — a particular concern given the measles cases in the facility. “He wants Elizabeth to have medicine so she can feel better.”

Elizabeth told her dad that when she got on the plane to Texas, she thought she was going back to Ecuador — and would never be able to become a doctor, Gutierrez said.

“In that moment, she thought that her dreams were over,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez hopes Elizabeth and her mother are able to wait out their case in “more humane conditions.” She pictures Elizabeth laughing in the hallway with her friend.

“I want it to get back to that: her walking into school, getting off the bus, walking in the hallway and just giggling on her way up the stairs into the cafeteria for breakfast,” she said.

Zuna hopes that day will come soon. He said he plans to welcome home his wife and daughter with a surprise and flowers.