Andrea Pedro Francisco was scheduled to have surgery in Minnesota to remove an ovarian cyst on Feb. 11. But six days before, as she headed to work, the 23-year-old was arrested by immigration agents and whisked to an El Paso detention center.
The cyst is now estimated to be the size of the tennis ball, and her case has caught the attention of international human rights groups, members of Congress and religious groups from her home state of Minnesota.
“She just told me that the pain extends all the way to her back now. And that when she has her period, which usually lasts three days, it’s lasting 10 days. So that’s part of the concern, is that she’s going to start bleeding out from the cyst,” said Ruby Powers, a Houston immigration attorney who is representing Pedro Francisco. Powers visited the woman on Friday at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center near El Paso International Airport.
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Pedro Francisco, who is from Guatemala, came with her mother to the United States without authorization in 2019, when she was 16. She has not been ordered deported and has a pending asylum claim, based on violence faced by women and Indigenous people in her home country, Powers said.
She doesn’t have a criminal record, her attorney said.
“She plays instruments for her church and is a strong believer. And she cares for her siblings and she’s very dedicated to her family, I think almost sacrificing her education and her plans and goals to be a dutiful daughter,” Powers said.
Pedro Francisco was detained by ICE during the Trump administration’s controversial enforcement efforts in Minnesota, and quickly brought to El Paso.
ICE said in a statement that Pedro Francisco and other detainees receive “comprehensive medical care, including access to vaccines, medical, dental, and mental health services, as well as medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”
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Powers said Pedro Francisco has received poor medical treatment in ICE custody – first at Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss and now at the El Paso processing center.
“They’re like, why are you telling people you’re not getting treatment?” Powers said of health care providers at the processing center. “And they keep telling her she doesn’t have a cyst. They do ultrasounds and say there’s nothing there, and they give her constipation medication. She takes the medication and she still has the pain.”
In its statement to the media, ICE acknowledged that Pedro Francisco has an ovarian cyst. Such cysts usually can be removed by laparoscopic surgery. Delaying surgery increases the risks if the cyst ruptures, according to medical literature,
“Since arriving at Camp East Montana, she has been seen by medical staff on-site seven times, transported to an area emergency room once, and evaluated three times at a local behavioral health center. She was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst during her emergency room visit, for which she received pain medication and was returned to Camp East Montana,” ICE said in the statement, which it has sent to multiple media organizations in recent weeks.
In extreme cases, ruptured cysts can be fatal. Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat whose district includes Pedro Francisco’s hometown of Burnsville, has called her continuing detention “a life or death situation.”
In a statement to El Paso Matters, Craig sharply criticized ICE’s treatment of Pedro Francisco.
“For over a month, my office has gone back and forth with ICE officials about Andrea’s condition. We’ve been ignored, put off, and lied to about the treatment she has received while in detention,” Craig said.
Pedro Francisco was moved from Camp East Montana to ICE’s El Paso processing center on March 20. The Fort Bliss facility was built quickly in 2025 and three detainees died there between December and February. The processing center opened in 1967.
“We were told it was ‘for her medical.’ No further explanation was provided,” said Asra Syed, an attorney who also has represented Pedro Francisco.
When Powers met Friday with Pedro Francisco, she was joined by two Minnesota pastors who were visiting El Paso as part of an ecumenical group to learn more about immigration issues. Her client was moved by the opportunity to pray with the pastors, Powers said.
Deb White, a member of the Moorhead, Minnesota, City Council was part of the ecumenical group. She went to the ICE processing center and spoke with the pastors after their visit.
“I know that just seeing her and hearing how she’s doing and knowing that she’s not getting the medical care that she urgently needs, it’s really heartbreaking and hard to believe that this is happening in the United States,” White said.
Powers has asked ICE to release Pedro Francisco on humanitarian parole, which is a discretionary power the agency has for detainees facing medical issues. She said she hasn’t received a response, and ICE didn’t respond to El Paso Matters’ questions about the request.
Humanitarian parole is likely Pedro Francisco’s only hope for release.
She filed for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court on Feb. 13, arguing that indefinite detention was illegal.
U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower of El Paso denied her request on April 2, citing a February ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed indefinite detention for people detained in the interior of the United States after entering the country illegally.
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In some ways, Pedro Francisco had bad luck. Federal court cases are randomly assigned to district judges. The other three federal judges in El Paso have generally ruled that people in Pedro Francisco’s circumstances are entitled to a bond hearing that could lead to their release from detention; Schydlower has been far more likely to deny habeas corpus petitions from ICE detainees.
Powers said her client needs to be freed to get much-needed medical care.
“I think we need to realize that humans are being detained under our government’s power that are not getting the medical treatment that they need. Would you want yourself to be in that situation? Would you want your mom, your kid? No way,” she said.
The post Minnesota woman detained by ICE in El Paso seeks release as her ovarian cyst worsens appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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