A 2-year-old girl who was taken into ICE custody along with her father was reunited with her mother on Friday afternoon. “The child is out of detention as of this afternoon, and recovering from this horrific ordeal,” said Kira Kelly, the family’s attorney.
The toddler, identified as Chloe Renata, and her father, Elvis Tipan-Echeverria, were detained by officers on Thursday in Minneapolis when they were returning home from a grocery store.
According to an Instagram post by Minneapolis City Council member Jason Chavez, “A suspicious vehicle followed her father’s vehicle home, broke his window and kidnapped them,” and that “no judicial warrant was provided.”
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In a statement cited by NBC News, the DHS called the father “an illegal immigrant from Ecuador who committed felony re-entry and broke the laws of this nation.” They claimed that Tipan-Echeverria was “driving erratically with a child in the vehicle.”
According to their spokesperson, the man “later parked his vehicle, and agents attempted to take [him] into custody, but he refused multiple lawful commands to open his door or lower his window.”
The statement added that “agents took Tipan-Echeverria into custody and attempted to give the child to the mother, who was in the area,” but she refused to take her.
Federal agents “took care of the child whom the mother would not take,” and the father-daughter were “reunited [at] a federal facility,” the statement added.
However, according to an affidavit cited by CNN, the family’s attorney claimed that the 2-year-old’s father tried giving her to her mother, but ICE agents “would not allow” it.
The mother became “terrified” as she saw ICE agents approach her and stepped back into the house. At this point, the toddler and her father were put in the back of an ICE vehicle that lacked a car seat.
BREAKING: lCE agents have now detained a 2-year-old girl in south Minneapolis and put her on a commercial flight out of Minnesota DESPITE a judge ordering the toddler’s release.
Lawyers say they were asylum-seekers, stopped without a warrant, with no final removal order.… pic.twitter.com/0rbkH6SPv1
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 23, 2026
The father-daughter duo were later transported to Texas, even though the family attorney’s emergency petition to release the child from the custody was approved by the court on Thursday night.
Per CNN, the court order determined “the risk of irreparable harm to maintain child in custody under the circumstances described in the pleadings are overwhelming.” The judge further wrote regarding the toddler, “Needless to say, she has no criminal history.”
Chloe, who, according to the attorney, has lived in Minneapolis “since her arrival in the United States as a newborn,” was later flown back to the city on Friday afternoon, as her father remained in custody.
“This case is horrific… Anybody who is a parent or cares for young kids knows the fear that happens when a child is separated from their parent. There is no way to know the long-term impact this will have on this little toddler,” said civil rights lawyer and co-founder of Groundwork Legal, Vaynerman, in a statement cited by The Guardian.
“The lack of humanity at every step of this process of what the government has been doing and how they have been unlawfully detaining people, including toddlers and children, it’s truly unimaginable. And yet this is where we find ourselves. There has to be an end to this type of cruelty,” Vaynerman continued.
