After nearly four months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in El Paso while in need of surgery for an ovarian cyst, a 23-year-old Minnesota woman originally from Guatemala has been released.
Andrea Pedro Francisco said ICE officials told her Wednesday that she would be freed, then released her later that day.
“It was a shock, it surprised me greatly. I was finishing eating when they told me I had to have a meeting. Suddenly, ICE told me that today I was going to be released, and I asked them, ‘Why, where am I going?’ They told me I was going home,” she said in a statement provided to El Paso Matters on Thursday by her attorney, Ruby Powers of Houston. “And I was just stunned because I truly did not know that yesterday I was going to be released. I didn’t know what to do. I thought it was like a joke because I wasn’t expecting it.
“Now that I know I’m going home, I think first of my family, of seeing my family again. And of my (musical) instruments, because they are like a part of my life. And also, since they told me I will need surgery, I am preparing myself for that.”
Pedro Francisco, whose hometown is Burnsville, a suburb in the Twin Cities, was arrested Feb. 5 during Operation Metro Surge – the sweeping ICE raids in Minnesota that saw more than 4,000 federal agents deployed and led to more than 3,000 arrests. She was immediately flown to El Paso for detention, where she was held until she was freed Wednesday, said Powers, who is representing Pedro Francisco in her asylum case.
The release was a surprise, Powers said, and she was still trying to piece together the conditions of the release.
“I think she was starting to lose hope, and I mean, the timing of this is …” the attorney said, and began sobbing.
“We really needed this right now, because her hearing was going to be moved until the end of July, and I wasn’t really sure if she’s going to make it,” Powers said in a phone interview with El Paso Matters. “I know she’ll be emotionally sustained when she sees her family, and then I’m going to keep pushing her, like anyone who cares about someone, making sure she schedules her medical treatment.”
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, reached out last week to a senior Trump administration official to request that she be released, said Smith’s spokesperson, Charlotte Hoffman. She wouldn’t publicly identify the administration official, but Hoffman said the senator was informed shortly before Pedro Francisco was released Wednesday that she was being freed.
ICE officials haven’t responded to a request for comment from El Paso Matters on the release of Pedro Francisco.
ICE had previously denied Pedro Francisco’s request for humanitarian parole, and an El Paso federal judge had denied her habeas corpus petition seeking release.
Minnesota officials who had sought Pedro Francisco’s release celebrated Thursday.
“Her ovarian cyst presents potentially life-threatening complications if left untreated, and she was in incredible pain,” said Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota. “Now she will be able to get the lifesaving medical care she should have been able to receive back in February.”
Rep. Angie Craig, also a Minnesota Democrat, who visited Pedro Francisco in El Paso last month, said she was “beyond happy and relieved” to hear of her release.
“Andrea didn’t deserve to be detained in the first place, and she certainly didn’t deserve to be denied the care that she desperately needed for months,” Craig said in a statement. “Andrea’s perseverance and courage in the face of such inhumanity has inspired me — and so many in our community — to continue our work together to hold ICE accountable for their cruel and lawless enforcement operations in Minnesota. Her release is proof that when Minnesotans come together to resist this administration, we prevail.”
A donor has arranged for Pedro Francisco to fly home to Minnesota, Powers said, but she didn’t want to provide details to protect her client’s privacy.
She was sent Feb. 5 from Minnesota to ICE’s East Montana Detention Facility, known as Camp East Montana, and became ill two days later. She was hospitalized, and a doctor confirmed she needed surgery. She was prescribed pain medications but never received them, her attorneys have said. She was returned to Camp East Montana and later transferred to the ICE El Paso Service Processing Center near the airport.
Powers has described her client’s cyst as being the size of a tennis ball.
Called the silent killer because early-stage symptoms are vague, ovarian cancer is the leading type of gynecologic cancer deaths in women, according to the American Cancer Society. It’s estimated more than 21,000 women will receive an ovarian cancer diagnosis this year – and some 12,500 women will die from it in 2026.
SEE ALSO: Nearly 180 ICE detainees quarantined at Camp East Montana for possible measles exposure
Pedro Francisco came to the United States with her mother at age 16 in 2019. They were fleeing violence and discrimination against Indigenous people in her native Guatemala, Powers has said. The two had been living in Minnesota, working as house cleaners, and were pursuing asylum claims.
She was denied humanitarian parole May 4.
Her case has garnered international attention with human rights groups such as Amnesty International calling for her release.
The post Minnesota woman with worsening ovarian cyst released from ICE detention in El Paso appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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