Stranger than fiction. Last month, on the heels of the great Bemidji (MN) roofing raid where ICE nabbed more than a dozen illegal aliens at a residential job site, federal immigration authorities did a similar raid in Thief River Falls, Minnesota.
According to federal court filings, the raid in Thief River Falls took place at a commercial roofing job site, believe it or not, of all places, at the Pennington County Jail.
The ICE raid nabbed three members of the Pacha Pacha family, from Ecuador. The two brothers and a son/nephew included Carlos Fernando, John Fernando, and Jorge Anibal Pacha Pacha.
Habeas corpus cases were filed on behalf of each member of the Pacha family in federal district court in Minnesota.
The three cases include a nearly identical set of facts and were assigned to three different judges, so we’ll see if everyone ends up at the same place.
The habeas cases allege that the Pacha’s were subject to “warrantless” arrests. These sorts of allegations tend to hinge on different definitions and timings: did the warrant “exist” before the arrest? Was a paper copy shown to the suspect before the arrest? Was the paper copy signed in ink? Was the paper copy printed in the correct language? At what point does an “arrest” begin? Was it the correct kind of warrant? Etc., etc.
Different judges have come to different conclusions, ranging from “warrants aren’t even needed to begin with” to “nothing ICE does can be possibly correct, not matter what they or how well it’s documented” based on similar sets of facts.
The government’s responses to the habeas petitions describe a different universe: glaring omissions and false statements are pointed out. In one case, the government reports the subject has already agreed to a voluntary departure back to Ecuador.
Adios!
