Andrea Pedro-Francisco, a Guatemalan asylum seeker detained by ICE in Minnesota, remains in a Texas detention camp with an urgent medical condition while a congresswoman and PLG demand her release.
On Her Way to Work
On the morning of February 5, 2026, Andrea Pedro-Francisco left her home in Burnsville, Minnesota, to go to work cleaning houses — the same job she had been doing to support herself and her mother. She never made it.
ICE agents stopped and detained her as part of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement dragnet across the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area. Andrea had no criminal record. She had no final order of removal. She had no judicial warrant issued against her. She was, by every legal standard, not a priority for enforcement.
She was transferred almost immediately to Camp East Montana, a crowded tent detention facility on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas — more than 1,500 miles from the community she had built, the mother she lives with, and the church where she sang in the choir, played guitar, and was preparing to become a deacon.
She has been there for over two months.
Who Is Andrea Pedro-Francisco
Andrea came to the United States from Guatemala in 2019, when she was 16 years old, alongside her mother. They came seeking asylum — fleeing the kind of conditions that the United States asylum system was built to address. Like thousands of others, they arrived and did what the law asks: they began the asylum process.
In the years that followed, Andrea built a real life in Burnsville. She found work, became a fixture in her church community, learned to play guitar, joined the choir, and was working toward becoming a deacon. Her mother, Lucia, describes her simply: a daughter she thinks of and cries for day and night.
“I do not want my daughter to be deported because she and I suffered a lot in our home country,” Lucia wrote in a letter read aloud at today’s press conference by a Haven Watch volunteer.
Andrea is not a case number. She is a 23-year-old woman who came here as a child, built a community, and was living quietly — until the morning she walked out her front door and didn’t come home.
A Surgery Scheduled. A Detention That Canceled It.
What makes Andrea’s situation especially urgent is the medical reality that ICE’s detention has interrupted.
Before she was arrested, Andrea had already been diagnosed with a large ovarian cyst — one that had grown to the size of a tennis ball. The cyst had become so painful that her doctor had prescribed opioids to manage it. And a surgery had been scheduled to remove it — set for just one week after the day ICE detained her.
That surgery never happened.
Instead, Andrea was transferred to Camp East Montana, where the medical care she has received consists primarily of Tylenol and ibuprofen. A cyst of her size carries serious risks: rupture, internal bleeding, and life-threatening complications. Her doctors — on the outside — flagged this as urgent. ICE, so far, has not treated it that way.
“I am not exaggerating when I say that this is a life-or-death situation,” said U.S. Representative Angie Craig at today’s press conference.
DHS, in a statement, said Andrea has been seen by medical staff seven times and was once transported to an emergency room where a doctor confirmed the cyst’s existence. “ICE maintains longstanding practices to provide comprehensive medical care,” the statement said. Her attorneys and advocates dispute that characterization strongly.
Camp East Montana: What ICE Isn’t Saying
The facility where Andrea is being held is not a standard detention center. Camp East Montana is a tent facility — overcrowded, under-resourced, and the subject of repeated reports of medical neglect and dangerous conditions.
Since the facility opened, there have been outbreaks of COVID-19, tuberculosis, and measles. Three detainees died there within a six-week period, including one man who was suffocated in a confrontation with guards — a death officially ruled a homicide. Reports from former detainees and advocates describe a facility where suicide attempts are alarmingly common. Worms were found in the food served to detainees.
ICE recently terminated its $1.3 billion contract with Acquisition Logistics, the company operating the facility, following a cascade of reports about neglect and conditions. The facility’s record is not a matter of dispute — it is documented.
More than 45 people have died in ICE custody since the start of Trump’s second term, the highest rate in over two decades, according to KFF Health News. “We are talking about people with treatable conditions — infections, diabetic crises — who were denied care until it was too late,” said attorney Asra Syed, who is representing Andrea in her deportation proceedings. “It’s not too late for Andrea yet.”
A Judge Said No. A Congresswoman Said Enough.
Andrea’s legal team filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of her detention under the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy — a policy that Republican and Democratic-appointed judges across the country have widely struck down as inconsistent with decades of legal practice.
This month, however, her petition was denied by U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower in Texas — one of many denials that have come from that judge in similar cases. Her outcome illustrates a troubling reality: what happens to a detained immigrant increasingly depends not just on the law, but on which judge and which jurisdiction their case lands in.
Attorney Asra Syed, managing partner at Austin firm Botkin Chiarello Calaf, who took Andrea’s case pro bono through the network of volunteer lawyers that formed during Operation Metro Surge, said at today’s press conference that there is still a path forward. “There is still hope for Andrea’s safe return home here to Burnsville if we can persuade the field office director of the El Paso Processing Center to release Andrea on humanitarian grounds,” Syed said.
Today, Representative Angie Craig — a Democrat representing the south metro district where Andrea lived and was arrested, and a candidate for U.S. Senate — held a press conference on the quiet residential street in Burnsville where Andrea was detained more than two months ago. She called on the Trump administration to release Andrea immediately.
“For over a month, my office has been going back and forth with ICE officials about Andrea’s condition,” Craig said. “We’ve been ignored, put off, and, frankly, lied to about the treatment she’s received.”
Craig’s office is currently working on approximately 20 cases of people first detained in her district — five of whom have severe medical issues. One constituent recently agreed to self-deport after being denied dialysis treatment in detention.
Craig and her Democratic colleagues have also introduced legislation to establish mandatory medical care standards for immigrants in detention. It has stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress.
A Community That Has Not Given Up
Andrea’s case has brought together an unusual coalition of advocates, legal volunteers, community organizations, and elected officials who refuse to let her story disappear.
Haven Watch — an organization that formed in the immediate aftermath of an ICE agent killing Renee Good in Minneapolis — has helped coordinate legal representation for Andrea and has been amplifying her case publicly. It was a Haven Watch volunteer who read Lucia’s letter at today’s press conference.
Ruby L. Powers of Powers Law Group has also been involved in Andrea’s representation, part of the broader network of immigration attorneys who mobilized across Minnesota and Texas in response to Operation Metro Surge.
Amnesty International has issued an urgent action document on Andrea’s behalf — a designation reserved for cases where there is an immediate threat to health or life — calling on the US government to release her or provide her with the urgent medical care her condition requires.
What Comes Next
The legal options have not been exhausted. The appeal to release Andrea on humanitarian grounds directly to the El Paso Processing Center field office director is the most immediate avenue — one that does not require a judge, only a decision by ICE itself to recognize that the cost of keeping Andrea detained is too high.
If you want to help, the most powerful thing you can do right now is make sure Andrea’s story is heard. Share it. Contact your representatives. Make sure the people with the power to release her know that the public is watching.
Andrea Pedro-Francisco came to this country as a teenager asking for protection. She built a life, a community, and a future. She was on her way to work when they took her. She deserves to come home.
Sources
- Minnesota Reformer, “I Feel Desperate”: Minnesota Woman Suffering Medical Emergency Stuck in Texas Detention, March 16, 2026. https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/03/16/i-feel-desperate-minnesota-woman-suffering-medical-emergency-stuck-in-texas-detention/
- Minnesota Reformer, Texas Judge Denies Petition to Release Woman Detained in Minnesota With Medical Condition, April 7, 2026. https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/04/07/texas-judge-denies-petition-to-release-woman-detained-in-minnesota-with-medical-condition/
- Minnesota Reformer, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig Calls for Release of Woman in ICE Detention With Large Ovarian Cyst. https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/u-s-rep-angie-craig-calls-for-release-of-woman-in-ice-detention-with-large-ovarian-cyst/
- Amnesty International, USA: Andrea Pedro-Francisco — Urgent Action / Medical Concern, AMR 51/0878/2026, 2026. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR51/0878/2026/en/
- YouTube / Video Coverage, Andrea Pedro-Francisco Case — Interview and Coverage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8oqcYQRVHs
- YouTube / Video Coverage, Andrea Pedro-Francisco — Additional Media Coverage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgZKg-2uGM
- KFF Health News, Deaths in ICE Custody at Highest Rate in Over Two Decades, 2026. https://www.kff.org
- Associated Press, Conditions at Camp East Montana: Detainee Accounts, 2026. https://www.apnews.com
- Human Rights Watch, Medical Neglect in US Immigration Detention, 2025. https://www.hrw.org
- Powers Law Group, 42 Dead and No Answers: The Crisis of Deaths in ICE Custody, March 2026. https://www.rubypowerslaw.com
