The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit in district court today on behalf of Maikol Javier Suarez Verela, who was illegally detained by the Carver County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office acted outside their clearly defined statutory authority and the bounds of the Minnesota Constitution by holding Suarez Verela for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after he paid bail.
“This case is about the fundamental right to be protected from unreasonable seizure,” said ACLU-MN Executive Director Deepinder Mayell. “That right is one of the bedrocks of the Bill of Rights and our democracy.”
Suarez Verela’s bail was paid by the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) on February 13. As soon as bail was paid, the Carver County Sheriff’s Office had no legal basis to continue to detain him—but they did so anyway. Instead of releasing Suarez Verela, the sheriff’s office illegally held him based on a request (not a judicial warrant) from ICE and then transferred him to federal custody.
Carver County staff and Sheriff Kamerud know that Minnesota law prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from holding people for ICE.
“Minnesota law is clear that sheriffs do not have authority to make arrests for civil immigration matters,” said ACLU-MN Staff Attorney Ian Bratlie. “Carver County cannot be allowed to violate our laws and Federal Constitution simply to attack minority groups. We are better than that.”
Every county in Minnesota – including Carver County – has received warnings for over a decade about honoring requests from ICE to hold people (also known as “ICE detainers”). This includes letters from the ACLU-MN in May 2014, March 2017 and February 2025. In January 2025, a Minnesota Sheriff’s Association attorney stated that Minnesota jails cannot legally comply with ICE detainers. Shortly before Carver County violated Suarez Verela's rights, Attorney General Keith Ellison issued an opinion that law enforcement could not detain individuals for ICE.
Defendants decided to ignore all these warnings and illegally held Suarez Verela for ICE.
The ACLU-MN has fought – and won – cases like this before. In 2017, the Minnesota Federal District Court held in Orellana v. Nobles County that holding an individual under an ICE detainer violated the Fourth Amendment. In 2019, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in our case Esparaza et al v. Nobles County that no state or federal law gave Minnesota sheriffs permission to arrest individuals for ICE, even if ICE had a detainer. In 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in our case Parada v. Anoka County that a county jail policy that required the jail to contact ICE for all foreign-born individuals was a “classic example of national origin discrimination.”
“Law enforcement must obey the law,” said ACLU-MN Staff Attorney Alicia Granse. “When law enforcement decides they can keep you in custody based not on a court order or a warrant, they break the law.”