MINNEAPOLIS (Minnesota Reformer) – Andrea Pedro-Francisco, a 23-year-old asylum seeker who has been pleading for medical treatment for a large ovarian cyst since being arrested by immigration agents in Minnesota in February, was unexpectedly released from a Texas detention center on Wednesday.
“It was a shock,” Pedro-Francisco said in a statement shared by her attorney. “Suddenly ICE told me that today I was going to be released, and I asked them why, where am I going? They told me I was going home.”
Pedro-Francisco’s case had drawn the attention of Democratic members of Congress, human rights advocates and clergy. Pro-bono attorneys unsuccessfully sued for her release in federal court and then appealed to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement directly for humanitarian parole, warning the cyst could be life-threatening unless it was surgically removed.
That request was denied last month, a day after Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig met with Pedro-Francisco during a congressional oversight visit to two El Paso detention centers. Craig, who represents the Twin Cities suburb where Pedro-Francisco lives, has been trying for months to pressure ICE to release her.
Ultimately, it was Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith who was able to secure her release through a phone call with a top DHS official.
“We were skeptical that this would work given the immigration environment that we’re living in, but we’re happy that it did,” said Miranda Morgan Lilla, state director for Smith’s office.
Smith’s office became aware of her case after the Reformer first reported on her story in March. Smith’s office coordinated with Pedro-Francisco’s lawyers and then last week called the DHS official, whom they declined to identify by name. On Wednesday evening, Smith received word that Pedro-Francisco was being released.
“Now she will be able to get the lifesaving medical care she should have been able to receive back in February,” Smith said in a statement.
Craig also released a statement celebrating Pedro-Francisco’s release, saying she was “beyond happy and relieved.”
“Andrea’s perseverance and courage in the face of such inhumanity has inspired me — and so many in our community — to continue our work together to hold ICE accountable for their cruel and lawless enforcement operations in Minnesota,” Craig said in a statement.
Pedro-Francisco, then 16, came to the United States from Guatemala with her mother in 2019 to seek asylum. She built a life in Burnsville with her mother, becoming involved in a church where she sang in the choir, played bass guitar and was preparing to become a deacon.
She was detained by ICE on her way to work cleaning houses on Feb. 5 at the height of Operation Metro Surge, an unprecedented incursion of some 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota. Despite having no criminal record, she was swiftly transferred to Camp East Montana, a crowded, disease-ridden tent detention center outside El Paso, and then to another facility, the El Paso Processing Center.
The arrest came less than a week before she was scheduled to have surgery to remove the cyst that had swelled to nearly the size of a tennis ball. A cyst that large can be life threatening or lead to infertility if left untreated, according to doctors.
While a doctor in Minnesota has prescribed her opioids for the pain, she was only receiving Tylenol and ibuprofen in detention, and she’d lost significant weight in detention.
Pedro-Francisco’s immigration attorney, Ruby Powers, had become increasingly worried how she would survive in detention as she fought for asylum in immigration court; her next hearing was scheduled for late July.
“I could tell the toll it was taking on her body after nearly four months,” Powers said.
Pedro-Francisco’s immigration case will be transferred to Minnesota, where she’ll have to convince an increasingly hostile bench of immigration judges that she deserves asylum. In the meantime, she will be able to undergo surgery.
Powers said Pedro-Francisco’s release has renewed her faith in humanity, and yet is aware of the thousands of immigrants languishing in detention centers across the country as the Trump administration carries out its campaign of mass deportations.
“She represents many who are not receiving medical treatment they deserve in detention. Unfortunately, there are many who don’t have a voice,” Powers said.
A lack of medical care has been well-documented in ICE detention facilities. Immigration attorneys and human rights advocates say they believe ICE is intentionally withholding treatment to coerce people to voluntarily deport, like a man from Minnesota who agreed to return to Mexico so he could access medication for his diabetes.
More than 45 people have died in ICE custody since the start of Trump’s second term, according to KFF, a health policy research outfit.
ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa did not immediately provide a statement about Pedro-Francisco’s release. Previously, she said that Pedro-Francisco was seen by medical professionals numerous times.
“This is the best healthcare that many individuals have received in their lives,” DHS said in a statement shared by Zamarripa.
Pedro-Francisco, in the statement through her attorney, said she was eager to see her mother and two younger siblings — and to again make music.
“I think first of my family, of seeing my family again. And of my instruments, because they are like a part of my life,” she said.
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