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Public officials and Northfield community members are denouncing the detainment of Adan Nunez Gonzalez, who was taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Nov. 11.
Widely circulated videos on social media capture one man pointing a gun at a vehicle while two others reached into the passenger side of the vehicle where Nunez Gonzalez was seated. Shortly after, four agents slammed Nunez Gonzalez to the ground and put him in handcuffs.
One bystander yelled “That’s my dad!” and another pleaded with agents to not hurt him. According to Krissa Anderson, who arrived after Nunez-Gonzalez was handcuffed and put into an unmarked vehicle, Nunez Gonzalez was on his way to work with two other people. She says he works for a family-owned painting business.
“What the family members told me is that when the agents pulled them over, they requested ID from the driver who had an ID, and then they requested ID from Adan in the passenger seat, and he didn’t have his ID with him, and he was in the process of getting his driver’s license,” said Anderson, a Northfield-based Spanish interpreter and immigrant advocate.
They asked the agents to present a warrant and badge numbers, which were not shown, according to Anderson.
Katie Prytz lives across the street from where the incident happened and watched it unfold from her home. She worked from home that day and her husband was off for Veteran’s Day.
“From our vantage point, we could see the driver side of the vehicle, and we were kind of behind where it was happening. I would say not much was going on for a good 10 to 15 minutes,” Prytz said.
Once Nunez Gonzalez’s 15-year-old son and another family member arrived, both Prytz and Anderson say the incident escalated. Two agents pulled out handguns and within minutes Nunez Gonzalez was taken and put into one of four unmarked vehicles.
“It was honestly really scary, because it’s not that far from our house, and I didn’t know if they were going to be shooting,” said Prytz.
From the time the four unmarked vehicles trapped the car Nunez Gonzalez was in, Prytz says it only took 20 minutes for agents to detain Nunez Gonzalez and leave the scene. It was heartbreaking for her to see Nunez Gonzalez’s teenage son react to the situation.
“He was just distraught,” Prytz said. “Just sobbing.”
According to an online ICE database, Nunez Gonzalez is in custody at Kandiyohi County Jail.
City officials say this is the latest in a string of ICE actions in Northfield over the past few months. But unlike past detainments, Northfield Mayor Erica Zweifel and city council member Jessica Peterson White say Nunez Gonzalez did not have a criminal history and no notice was given to local police before Nunez Gonzalez was taken into custody.
In an emailed statement to MPR News, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Nunez Gonzalez had an arrest for public intoxication and a warrant for failing to appear in criminal court.
Nunez Gonzalez does not appear to have any criminal convictions or pending cases in Minnesota. MPR News could not find record of the charges DHS alleges.
“He has three prior removals from the U.S. He chose to commit a felony by illegally re-entering the U.S. for a fourth time,” said Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the federal agency.
McLaughlin says during the detainment last week, the driver of the vehicle and Nunez Gonzalez refused to comply with law enforcement commands, and Nunez Gonzalez tried to evade arrest by placing the car in drive “in an attempt to drive over officers.” She says officers used the “minimum amount of force necessary.”
City, government officials concerned about ICE action
In the days after the incident, city and government leaders like Zweifel and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar have spoken out.
Zweifel says the incident has traumatized Nunez Gonzalez’s family and sowed fear in Northfield’s community.
“We value the safety and well-being of all our residents and we’re a welcoming and inclusive city,” she said. “I think we’re standing strong together as a community. It’s just really unclear what we as a community can do.”
Because this is a federal case, Zweifel says the city can’t intervene. And although Northfield police officers were present at the scene, they’ve got their hands tied too. The department’s policy prohibits any intervention, participation or assistance with immigration enforcement actions.
“The department was not involved in the contact or any related arrests and has not been provided details regarding the circumstances or reasons for ICE’s actions,” said Jeff Schroepfer, the city’s police chief.
Sahan Journal, which spoke with Nunez Gonzalez's wife, says he has lived in Minnesota without work authorization and legal status for about a decade.
“As a local elected official, it’s obviously extremely troubling to see federal law enforcement acting in ways that I consider to be in violation of basic constitutional protections and basic human rights,” said Peterson White. “And I think our goal in local government and local law enforcement is to just keep everyone in the community safe, and that becomes exponentially more difficult when people are living in fear.”
Klobuchar, a Democrat, says her team is in touch with Nunez Gonzalez’s lawyer and is still trying to understand what happened. While she believes in secure borders, Klobuchar says ICE’s actions are scaring people.
“In this case, I am really concerned about what's happened here. I don't think that this was the way to handle this,” she told MPR News.
U.S. Rep. Angie Craig wrote a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Kristi Noem about her concern that Northfield police was not informed of the ICE action prior to it happening and that ICE agents did not identify themselves or show a warrant.
Community supports Nunez Gonzalez’s family in the aftermath
According to Anderson, Nunez Gonzalez has been living in the U.S. since March 2014 and has four children. Their ages range from kindergarten to 15 years old. Nunez Gonzalez is the primary source of income for the family.
“A lot of people are really outraged by the way that this happened,” she said. “They’re upset. They’re really sad that a family is missing their father now, and obviously it’s a really scary thing for the immigrant community.”
Anderson says Nunez Gonzalez’s wife has been in the process of requesting asylum in the U.S. for at least nine years and is afraid she may be targeted next. It is still unclear why Nunez Gonzalez was detained.
To help support the family, Anderson organized a meal train and a GoFundMe for Nunez Gonzalez’s family that has now reached over $9,700 within two days.
Community members were scheduled to gather in downtown Northfield for a vigil on Sunday evening to support Nunez Gonzalez and his family.
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