Overview
- Elizabeth Zuna and her mother were detained by ICE on Jan. 6 while headed to school and transferred by air to the Dilley family detention center in Texas.
- District officials said she has been released from federal custody, though her return to Minnesota remains uncertain because the facility reported a measles outbreak that may require quarantine.
- Her release comes days after a federal judge ordered 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father freed from the same facility, reducing the number of detained Columbia Heights students to three, according to the superintendent.
- Attorneys say the family has an active asylum case and are pursuing habeas petitions in related cases, arguing distant transfers hinder access to counsel and delay hearings.
- The detentions have fueled fear and school disruptions, including a bomb-threat closure, as state and local education groups filed a lawsuit seeking to bar immigration enforcement near school campuses.