ICE Detains Two-Year-Old Girl Days After Using 5-Year-Old as Bait

ICE detained a 2-year-old girl in Minneapolis on Thursday, just two days after using a 5-year-old as bait—once again proving that claims that federal agents are only going after the worst of the worst are outright lies.

A district court judge ordered that the child be released by 9:30 p.m. on Friday after she and her father were detained by ICE at a traffic stop. They have been identified as Elvis Joel Tipan Echeverria and Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis following a GoFundMe effort to bring them home.

“Respondents have taken a 2-year-old into custody – an escalation of violence that is unspeakable, cruel and without any legal basis or justification,” their attorneys said in court filings.

Their attorneys claim that their clients, both from Ecuador, are asylum-seekers who were arrested without warrants.

“On January 22, 2026, Chloe who is 2 years of age, and Elvis who is her father, were detained in South Minneapolis by ICE. They were driving back home from the grocery store when immigration officials decided to detain them,” the father and daughter’s GoFundMe reads. “With the permission of the mother, we are reaching out to community to help us raise funds for lawyer fee’s, food, bond requests, rent, livability, and resources to keep this family together. She would appreciate the help from community in reuniting their family.”

While the judge’s ruling raises hope that the toddler will return home soon, her arrest only adds to the bleak deluge of news coming out of Minnesota. ICE continues to terrorize people, often brutalizing and wrongfully detaining them in the process. And they’re preparing to potentially move on to Maine, Wisconsin, and maybe your town next.