ICE agents arrest El Salvadorian man in southeast Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A Minneapolis dad gave his eyewitness account of a deportation officer holding a man at gunpoint Monday morning.

It happened in Southeast Minneapolis, which led Mayor Jacob Frey to speak out Monday about what happened.

The witness says he saw an officer break the man’s car window to get them out.

ICE says the man didn’t come out of his car for about 15 minutes. It all unfolded in front of a local man watching the exchange with his infant daughter.

“We had two government vehicles with their lights on here,” said Andrew McIlree. “We had the person’s car here.”

McIlree watched from his front yard, and his cell phone pictures show three deportation officers wearing police gear arresting a man McIlree says the trio had just pulled over.

“This guy wasn’t opening his door. They were shouting at him. He was being peaceful. They brought out a night stick and smashed out his window, popped his doors,” he recalled.

An ICE spokesperson says the man, who is from El Salvador, is in the country illegally.

Another witness shared other photos of the man’s SUV with the broken window and glass around an empty car seat inside.

Monday night, an ICE spokesperson released a statement saying, “The El Salvadorian man was an immigration fugitive with a misdemeanor conviction in Hennepin County in 2007 and was deported in 2009.”

The man remains in ICE custody pending reinstatement of his prior removal order.

In the wake of the incident, Frey tweeted, “MPD have not and will not cooperate with any such activity and are prohibited from taking action to detect or apprehend based solely on immigration status.”

ICE says someone who reenters the country after already being deported commits a felony, which can be punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, if convicted.