Two female ICE agents posed as motorists with car troubles outside the home of mechanic Jesus Flores Aguilar on Feb. 12, according to the man’s attorney. When Flores Aguilar went outside to help, he was arrested by immigration agents.

Four days later, he walked across the border to his native Mexico, what federal authorities refer to as “self-deporting.”

“His six kids are now without their father,” Attorney John Hayden earlier told MPR News.

Flores Aguilar is one of nearly 1,700 people arrested in Minnesota by federal agents this winter who have already been deported.

That total accounts for almost half the people who were arrested during the federal operations in the state, according to recent data released through a federal lawsuit. The data shows that the Trump Administration has been shuttling many of the people it arrests out of the country at a rapid clip — leaving them little time to challenge their detentions or make a case for why they should be allowed to stay.

ICE did not immediately respond to questions for this story.

The numbers come from data secured by a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Deportation Data Project and includes documentation of more than 3,700 arrests in the state between Dec. 1 and March 10. The previously unreleased data details for the first time the number of people the federal government arrested, detained and deported in recent months.

Minnesota’s numbers seem in line with what’s happening in the rest of the country, said Raha Wala, vice president at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for low-income immigrants. He said his organization has struggled to get factual information from the Department of Homeland Security.

“The bottom line is this administration is pushing for a maximum amount of deportations with a minimum amount of due process,” Wala said.

Arrests peaked in the state after Renee Good’s killing in the first week of January. Deportations of those arrested rose to their highest levels in mid-February. By early March, deportations of people arrested in Minnesota appear to have returned to about the same levels they were at in December, when the immigration enforcement surge began.

Many deportees sent to Latin American countries

Most of those deported from the United States were returned to Latin American countries, including almost 600 people returned to Mexico and about 520 deported to Ecuador. At least 17 minors were also deported, almost half of whom were from Ecuador.

A typical person from Mexico spent just nine days in detention before their deportation, while people from Colombia typically spent 45 days in detention.

The Trump administration’s rhetoric used to justify the federal surge centered on claims that Somali-Americans committed fraud. However, just over 100 Somalis were arrested during the operation. The data shows only four were deported to Somalia during this time, where the U.S. Department of State has issued a travel advisory citing terrorism and civil unrest.

Groups such as the American Immigration Council have expressed concerns that immigrants have been deported to places other than their countries of origin, which sometimes happened when immigrants had proven they faced persecution if returned to their home countries. But only eight people arrested in Minnesota were deported to third countries, including Cubans, Spaniards and Venezuelans who were deported to Mexico.

Wala said the speed with which deportations take place varies from country to country. Mexico, for instance, is willing to accept deported immigrants while countries with more strained relationships to the U.S. may simply refuse.

Of those who were deported, about 45 percent were collateral arrests, meaning federal agents encountered them in a public place or during an operation targeting another person, rather than targeting them explicitly.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have said in public statements that “Operation Metro Surge” targeted the “worst of the worst,” citing immigrants who were convicted of crimes. But the data shows that just 1 in 3 of those deported from Minnesota had either criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

Jesus Flores Aguilar’s habeas corpus petition, which challenged the legality of his detention, said he had been a law-abiding resident while in Minnesota. However, his attorney John Hayden said Flores Aguilar had returned to the U.S. after previously being removed, which is a felony. Hayden told MPR News he withdrew that challenge, knowing that efforts to keep his client in the country would not be successful.

Many immigrants chose to leave rather than face ‘prolonged detention’

About 43 percent of the people deported from Minnesota “self-deported,” which is a term that federal officials have used to describe immigrants who chose to leave voluntarily rather than wait in detention centers while challenging their arrests in court. People who were deported were typically detained for about 17 days, while people who were later released by the government were detained for nearly 60 days.

Wala of the National Immigration Law Center said there appear to be more people voluntarily deporting themselves across the country, but that it’s partly due to pressure the administration is putting on detainees.

“They want to make life as miserable as possible for immigrants or migrants, more generally, with the hope that they will choose at times even the risk of persecution,” Wala said, “rather than facing prolonged detention in the United States or persistent harassment by ICE and other law enforcement officials here within the United States.”

More than half of people detained by federal authorities after Dec. 1 still had active cases that were working through the immigration court system as of March 10, the most recent data available. That’s because they likely haven’t been in custody long enough for their cases to resolve.

Wala said he hopes increased transparency about the federal government’s immigration practices will allow more immigrants access to due process and ensure the public knows what’s happening to them.

The Data Deportation Project said the arrest data is incomplete and includes a number of duplicates, which MPR News and APM Reports accounted for in its analysis. Still, the data provides the clearest picture yet of the federal government’s actions this winter.

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Brandy Hicks