The explanation from ICE is an example of recent run-ins between immigration officers and health care workers that have contributed to mounting friction at Minneapolis hospitals. Workers at the Hennepin County facility say ICE officers have restrained patients in defiance of hospital rules and stayed at their sides for days. The agents have also lingered around the campus and pressed people for proof of citizenship.

According to his lawyers, Castañeda Mondragón entered the U.S. in 2022 with valid immigration documents. Minnesota incorporation filings show he founded a company called Castaneda Construction the following year with an address listed in St. Paul. He appears to have no criminal record.

His lawyers told a court that Castañeda Mondragón was racially profiled during the crackdown, and that officers determined only after his arrest that he had overstayed his visa.

“He was a brown-skinned, Latino Spanish speaker at a location immigration agents arbitrarily decided to target,” his lawyers wrote in a petition seeking his release from ICE custody.