Minneapolis: US immigration authorities arrested a 2-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis and transferred them to Texas despite a court order directing the child’s release, according to court filings, lawyers and media reports.

According to Anadolu Agency, the father, identified in court records as Elvis Joel TE, was stopped by immigration officers with his daughter around noon while they were returning home from a store, as reported by the Guardian. Later that evening, a federal judge ordered the child’s release, but authorities instead placed both on a flight to a detention center in Texas.

Irina Vaynerman, the family’s lawyer, said immigration officials later flew the pair back to Minnesota and released the toddler into her mother’s custody. The father remains in detention in Minnesota. Vaynerman expressed the gravity of the situation by stating, ‘The horror is truly unimaginable. The depravity of all of this is beyond words.’

Another family lawyer, Kira Kelley, mentioned that agents entered the family’s backyard and driveway without a warrant as the father and daughter arrived home Thursday. Kelley added that one officer smashed a car window while the child was inside. The mother, upon stepping back into the house, was not allowed by agents to take her daughter from the father, who was subsequently placed into an immigration vehicle with his daughter.

The father, originally from Ecuador, has a pending asylum claim and no final removal order, according to his lawyers. They noted that the child has lived in Minneapolis since arriving in the United States as a newborn. Lawyers filed an emergency petition seeking the release of both the father and daughter. A federal judge in Minnesota ordered that they not be transferred out of state and later directed the immediate release of the child into Kelley’s custody. The judge cited the ‘risk of irreparable harm,’ emphasizing that the petition was likely to succeed and stating, ‘Needless to say, she has no criminal history.’

In response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that agents were conducting a ‘targeted enforcement operation’ when they identified Elvis Joel TE as an ‘illegal immigrant’ who had allegedly reentered the US unlawfully and was ‘driving erratically with a child.’ DHS claimed that he refused to open his door or lower his window. They further alleged that agents ‘attempted to give the child to the mother who was in the area, but she refused,’ and stated that DHS officers ‘took care of the child who the mother would not take.’

A lawyer for the family contested that account, labeling the claim that the mother refused to take her daughter as false and asserting that agents prevented the father from returning the child to her mother inside the home. The family’s lawyers are seeking a broader court order to bar transfers out of Minnesota for at least seven days after detainees gain access to legal counsel, as well as to prevent out-of-state transfers for individuals with pending habeas petitions challenging their detention.