As hundreds of immigrants are detained in Minnesota, families struggle with separation

One morning just before 6, immigration agents pulled over longtime roofer Marco Gutierrez down the street from his Brooklyn Park home. They said he had a deportation order and took him for processing at Fort Snelling. Then he was shipped to Freeborn County jail.

“I’m glad my kids didn’t see this,” Gutierrez recalled.

As days turned into weeks in ICE detention, Gutierrez’s wife, Sara, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, struggled to adapt to the quiet. Her husband, 37, had always brightened up the house with his laughter, cooking and playing with the four children who live there. He drove his sons to soccer games, taught his daughter to drive and took his mother-in-law to doctor’s appointments. They were looking forward to celebrating their birthdays at the Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chão.

Sara told the two younger children — ages 3 and 5 — that their father was working in another state to avoid upsetting them. She knew a tax refund would help, but did not know how long they could endure without Gutierrez’s earnings as bills came due for the mortgage, car, groceries and other expenses.

“Sometimes I want to cry — I don’t know what to do,” said Sara, 42.

The detention by ICE of hundreds of immigrants – mostly men – in Minnesota has led to emotional and financial turmoil for many families forced apart. Hearings at the Fort Snelling Immigration Court are filled with jailed men lamenting how their wives and children will pay bills and survive without them.

After he was ordered removed, one Rapid City, S.D., man who has lived in the U.S. off and on for 20 years asked, “But my daughter, what can I do?” His American-born child was 2 years old. An immigration judge told him there was nothing he could do. An Iowa father with no criminal record who has lived in the U.S. since 1999 was arrested and brought to ICE detention in Minnesota. He was released on bond just 10 days before his wife was set to give birth to their fourth child. Other men asked to be deported so they could start providing for their families again from a distance.

One detainee was working at a construction site when ICE agents entered looking for another man; they arrested him as well after learning he was undocumented. His attorney, Clara Fleitas, secured the man’s bond after noting her client had no criminal record and describing him as a hardworking and caring father to his American-born, 2-year-old son.

“It was really hard on the family,” Fleitas said afterward. “I know he’s just happy to be home and with them again.”

Gutierrez just wanted to return to his loved ones.

When he talked to his 3-year-old daughter on the phone from jail, “sometimes it breaks me,” he said. “It breaks my heart.” Gutierrez tried to present a happy demeanor in their calls, letting his daughter believe he was working away from home and not in immigration detention.

“I’m the head of the family,” Gutierrez said. “I’ve got my wife, I’ve got my kids, I’ve got my stepkids, I’ve got my mother-in-law in the house. My wife can’t afford to pay all the [expenses] we have. Right now, everything is expensive. … I need to go to work.”

He came to Iowa as an unaccompanied minor without legal documents in 2005 and was deported. He returned and five years later agreed to accept voluntary departure. Mexico was dangerous, and Gutierrez returned to the Midwest quickly. He started working in restaurants, doing sheetrock jobs and landscaping. Then, he said, “I fell in love with roofing.” Gutierrez said he’s done commercial and residential roofing work all over the Twin Cities.

He was issued a notice to appear for removal proceedings again, but was granted a reprieve to stay in the U.S. in 2015 through a docket management tool called administrative closure. The mechanism allows immigration judges in some circumstances to indefinitely stay deportation proceedings, and it removes them from the immigration judge’s active calendar. Pausing such cases in the backlogged courts allows the government to free up resources for bigger priorities.

But Gutierrez’s attorney Nico Ratkowski said when a removal case is administratively closed, either side can get the case back on the active docket by filing a “motion to recalendar,” which the court is required to grant and does not need to be supported by any argument or facts.

During the first Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a decision that sought to end administrative closure, and internal ICE guidelines ordered agency attorneys to recalendar all administratively closed cases.

Ratkowski said that Gutierrez’s case was put back on the active docket in 2020 and the immigration court sent him and his former attorney a hearing notice, but that Gutierrez assumed his case was fully resolved and never updated his address with the attorney, the court or ICE. Gutierrez said he would have gone to the hearing in 2022 had he known about it. He was ordered removed in absentia after failing to appear.

By the time of the administrative closure, Gutierrez had become friends with Sara. The couple moved in together in 2017 and wed in 2019, blending their families. They have two children together; Sara already had three of her own, including one who’s now an adult living outside the home. Gutierrez’s teenage son with another woman visited on weekends.

Sara is an American citizen of Salvadoran heritage, and Gutierrez said he looked into gaining legal status through the marriage. But he learned from an attorney that he might need to go to Mexico and wait to complete the process, leaving his wife without enough money to pay the bills.

“That was my biggest fear,” recalled Gutierrez.

Last June, the Biden administration announced a “Keeping Families Together” policy to allow unauthorized people married to U.S. citizens the chance to get a green card without first having to leave the country, provided they had lived in America for at least a decade and met other criteria. In response to a challenge from GOP-led states, a federal judge in November found that the initiative violated immigration law.

After ICE jailed Gutierrez in late February, Ratkowski worked to file a motion to reopen his case — the only way to prevent his deportation — based on the notice to appear lacking key information. Ratkowski estimated that he would likely be released after two months, if an immigration judge granted the motion and held a bond hearing for his client.

Gutierrez said authorities drove him back to Fort Snelling in March to put him on a deportation flight to Mexico. He said officials pressed him to sign deportation papers, but his lawyer told him not to sign anything and repeatedly called immigration authorities to stop him from being taken away. Finally, Gutierrez was taken to Sherburne County jail.

“I’m a hard worker. ... All I’m asking is, give me the opportunity to take my family forward and take my kids to college,” said Gutierrez. “I don’t want them to suffer. I don’t even care about me; I care about my kids.”

Sara used to be a hairdresser, but her mother suffered a stroke last fall. Now Sara receives government payments to take care of her mother as a personal care assistant, making it difficult to replace Gutierrez’s income.

Gutierrez’s son Ydiel, 15, liked talking with his dad about soccer, cars, horses and funny things that happened at school. He recalled how his father liked to point out all the buildings he’d roofed when they were driving around, and how he was good at making pasta verde and chicken wings.

“I noticed that [my mother’s] been down — she doesn’t have that partner with her anymore by her side,” said Ydiel. “They used to always be together.”

When a friend invited her to a quinceañera, Sara declined to go because she felt bad that her husband was in jail. She prayed steadily for his return. One day, the couple’s 5-year-old son overheard a conversation that Gutierrez was in jail and started crying. Sara told the child no, his father was working. She claimed they were talking about a different person.

Last week, Sara learned that Gutierrez was deported to Mexico. Ratkowski said in an email that he was put on a plane after Immigration Judge Sarah Mazzie denied his motion to reopen the case. The attorney added that every immigration judge in the court has approved the same motions in recent years, including Mazzie, and he is appealing.

“I have a handful of clients where they kind of fit the same profile, where we’re putting form over substance — we’re ignoring the humanitarian aspect and they’re being treated by the government like a number,” said Ratkowski. “He’s a casualty of the system.”

Gutierrez may be able to eventually return if Sara applies for him to gain legal status through their marriage. The U.S. institutes a 10-year bar on people re-entering the country after deportation, though the government grants hardship waivers. “We hope … we can bring him back,” she said.

Louis Krauss of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.