St. Paul mayor blasts DHS for not doing "their homework" in mistaken identity arrest
ChongLy Thao was brought out of his St. Paul home last week in handcuffs, wearing only his underwear and Crocs as neighbors shouted their concern and anger. It turns out ICE agents had the wrong man, mistaking Thao for a sex offender who had already been in prison for a year.
Thao, who was released an hour later, is a longtime family friend of St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, the city's first Hmong American and female leader.
"I think that is the part that is the most maddening to me that they couldn't even do their homework," Her said. "That the person they were looking for was already incarcerated and had no affiliation with this family."
Her says the estimated 96,000 Hmong in Minnesota are wrongly being targeted, with relatives of the detained constantly appealing to her.
"Someone inevitably comes up to me and tells me they have a family member and a relative who has been detained at a facility in Texas and was taken for a number of days, or they were citizens and had no record. I hear story after story after story," Her said.
Columbia Heights official describes trying to stop 5-year-old Liam Ramos from being taken
Among the detainees are children, including Twin Cities pre-schooler Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old boy who was taken into ICE custody along with his father. The image of Ramos with his floppy-eared hat and Spiderman backpack has attracted worldwide attention.
Columbia Heights School Board officials were at the scene and tried to intervene. Among them was board chair Mary Granlund.
"As I was walking up, people were saying, 'The school is here! The school is here!' Because I had my school lanyard on. 'The school can take, the school can take him!' I said, 'Yes, I can take him, I am the school, I can take him. I knew the superintendent was close behind half a block away, but they closed the door and left with him.'"
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem estimates ICE has detained 10,000 undocumented residents in Minnesota since the start of Operation Metro Surge last month. Noem describes the people taken into custody as "the worst of the worst," and that ICE presence in the state continues to make Minnesotans safer.
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