University, ICE Clash Over Details of Student’s Arrest

Augsburg University administrators and federal officials are giving conflicting accounts about what happened when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an undocumented student on the private campus over the weekend, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. 

On Saturday, ICE agents in an unmarked car followed Jesus Saucedo-Portillo into a parking lot on the Minneapolis campus and attempted to detain him. Campus security and residence hall officials observed the situation and tried to intervene. Soon, more agents arrived, “pointing weapons at the crowd and pushing witnesses back” as students began recording the incident, according to a campuswide email Provost Paula O’Loughlin wrote Saturday evening: “I want to emphasize that the staff and other Augsburg community members who were present followed our protocols.”

According to the university, when a senior administrator asked to see a judicial warrant, agents said they didn’t have one and eventually arrested Saucedo-Portillo. “It was done on private property, without a warrant,” Paul Pribbenow, president of the university, told the Star Tribune. “From our perspective, that is illegal.”

A judicial warrant signed by a federal judge is required for officers to enter private property or detain someone there, according to the National Immigration Law Center. ICE arrest warrants are typically signed by immigration officials and agents must get permission to enter private areas.

However, the Department of Homeland Security has since contested the university’s claims that ICE agents didn’t have an arrest warrant. In a statement Monday, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs for DHS, accused the university administrators on the scene of attempting “to obstruct the arrest.”

“Our officers told the school Administrator and campus security that ICE had a warrant for the illegal alien’s arrest. The school Administrator told ICE officers they were violating university policies. Our officers informed them that federal law supersedes any University policy and that if campus security would not stop blocking the law enforcement vehicle from exiting, they would be obstructing justice,” McLaughlin’s statement said. “The school administrator continued her efforts to block the vehicle from leaving and ordered campus security to stand in front of the vehicle. Our officers followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to clear the area and successfully arrested this criminal illegal alien.”

McLaughlin also claimed that Saucedo-Portillo “is a registered sex offender and has a previous arrest for driving while intoxicated.” However, a search of Minnesota court records returned no record of a DWI case, and his name is not listed in the national sex offender registry, according to the Star-Tribune.

The university says its “previous statements about the incident remain unchanged,” Rachel Farris, a university spokesperson, told the newspaper Tuesday. “When asked to provide a judicial warrant, the agents refused to produce and stated they did not have one, despite being on private property.”