A Guatemalan immigrant who need a surgery to remove an ovarian cyst has been released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in El Paso.
Andrea Pedro Francisco was released Thursday, June 4, from the El Paso Service Processing Center after four months of detention. The 23-year-old Guatemalan immigrant had been detained during ICE’s operations in Minnesota on Feb. 5, a week prior to when she had a surgery scheduled to remove the cyst.
Pedro Francisco expressed surprise in a statement to reporters at her sudden release.
“It was a shock, it surprised me greatly,” Pedro Francisco said. “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. 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.”
She said that she will now return to her family, friends and her instruments. She is mentally preparing for her pending surgery.
Ruby Powers, Pedro Francisco’s attorney, celebrated her release. She recognized the important work that others played in making the release possible.
“This was never a one person or one place effort,” Powers said in a statement. “It took advocates, legislators, religious leaders, legal teams, and media outlets across Texas, Minnesota, and beyond, all pushing together across state lines and jurisdictions and refusing to let her case be forgotten.”
She acknowledged Pedro Francisco’s strength, saying that “Andrea met every moment of this ordeal with a strength and dignity that humbled everyone around her. She endured pressure that most people will never know, and she never broke. Watching her fight renewed something in all of us.”
Advocates and congressional representatives had called for Pedro Francisco’s release.
Among them was U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party-Prior Lake, Minnesota, who traveled to El Paso on May 4 to meet with Pedro Francisco. She celebrated the young woman’s release after advocating for her immediate release.
“I am beyond happy and relieved to hear that Andrea has been released from ICE custody and will soon be home with her family and friends in Minnesota, where she belongs,” 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 (its) cruel and lawless enforcement operations in Minnesota. Her release is proof that when Minnesotans come together to resist this administration, we prevail.”
She also said that Pedro Francisco did not deserve to be detained and denied the medical attention she needed.
Pedro Francisco is an Indigenous Mayan immigrant from the western highlands of Guatemala.
She migrated to the U.S. with her mother in 2016, when she was 16 years old. She has supported her mom and her siblings since arriving in the U.S.
Craig had previously told reporters in El Paso that playing music in the church is Pedro Francisco’s passion and that she has noted that not being able to play has led to a growing depression. Pedro Francisco played the bass and piano in her church.
Pedro Francisco’s case gained national attention over the denial of attention for her medical condition. Amnesty International issued a call for her release on April 10 and Craig said that the El Paso detention facility has received letters calling for her immediate release.
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:jdabbott@usatodayco.com; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Guatemalan immigrant in need of surgery released from ICE detention
Reporting by Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times | USA TODAY Network
