MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so messed up after a beating by immigration officials that he initially couldn’t remember having a daughter and still struggles to recall cherished moments like the night he taught her to dance.
But the violence he suffered last month in Minnesota while he was detained burns in his battered mind.
He remembers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him from a friend’s car on January 8 outside a San Paul shopping center and threw him to the ground, handcuffed him, then punched him and hit him on the head with a steel basket. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again.
He also remembers the emergency room and the excruciating pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.
“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” recounted the Mexican immigrant this week with The Associated Press, which recently reported on how his case contributed to increasing friction between federal immigration agents and a Minneapolis hospital.
Castañeda Mondragón, 31, is one of an unknown number of immigration detainees who, despite avoiding deportation during the Trump administration’s enforcement crackdown, were left with permanent injuries after violent encounters with ICE officials. His case is one of the allegations of excessive force that the federal government has so far refused to investigate.
He was so injured that he was disoriented for days at Hennepin County Medical Center, where ICE officers constantly watched over him.
Officials claimed he ran head first into a wall
The officials told the nurse Castañeda Mondragón “did it on purpose with his head first into a brick wall,” an account that the caretaker immediately doubted. A CT scan showed fractures to the front, back and both sides of his skull — injuries that a doctor told AP were inconsistent with a fall.
“There was never a wall,” Castañeda Mondragón said in Spanish, recalling ICE officers hitting him with the same metal rod used to break the windows of the vehicle he was in. He later identified it as an ASP, a telescopic baton normally carried by law enforcement.
Training materials and police policies on the use of force around the United States say that such a baton can be used to strike the arms, legs and body. But hitting the head, neck or spine is considered a potentially fatal force.
“The only time a person can be hit in the head with a baton is when the person presents the same threat that warrants the use of a firearm — a lethal threat to the officer or others,” said Joe Key, a former Baltimore police lieutenant and use-of-force expert testifying in the police defense.
Once he was taken to an ICE holding facility in Ft. Castañeda Mondragón, who was bending over backwards in suburban Minneapolis, said the officers started beating him again. Acknowledging that he was seriously injured, he said, he asked them to stop but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.”
“They were very racist people,” he said. “Nobody insulted them, neither me nor the other person who kept me with her. It was their character, their racism towards us, because we were immigrants.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the past two weeks about Castañeda Mondragón’s injuries.
It is unclear if his arrest was captured on body camera footage or if there may be additional recordings from security cameras at the detention center.
In a recent effort to strengthen transparency, the DHS announced a broad introduction of body cameras for immigration officials in Minneapolis as the government also brings the presence of ICE there.
ICE deportation officer William J. Robinson did not say how Castañeda Mondragón’s skull was fractured in a Jan. 20 statement filed in federal court. During the intake process, it was determined that he “had a head injury that required emergency medical treatment,” he wrote in the filing.
The statement also stated that Castañeda Mondragón entered the United States legally in March 2022, and that the agency determined only after his arrest that he had overstayed his visa. A federal judge later ruled that his arrest was illegal and ordered his release from ICE custody.
A video shows him stumbling during the arrest
A video posted on social media captured the moments immediately after the arrest of Castañeda Mondragón as four masked men pass him handcuffed through a parking lot. The video shows him unsteady and unsteady, held by ICE officers.
“Don’t resist,” shouts the woman who is recording. “Because they’re not going to do anything but blame you more.”
“I hope they don’t kill you,” she adds.
“And you all gave the man a concussion,” shouts a man nearby.
The witness who posted the video refused to speak to AP or to consent to the publication of the video, but Castañeda Mondragón confirmed that he is the handcuffed man seen in the recording.
At least one ICE officer later told staff at the medical center that Castañeda Mondragón “took her (expletive) at him,” according to court documents filed by a lawyer seeking his release and a nurse who spoke to the AP.
AP interviewed a doctor and five nurses about Castañeda Mondragón’s treatment at HCMC and the presence of ICE officers inside the hospital. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the patient’s care and feared retaliation. AP also consulted an outside doctor, who affirmed that the injuries were inconsistent with an accidental fall or running into a wall.
Minnesota state law requires health professionals to report to law enforcement any injury that may have been committed as part of a crime.
An HCMC spokeswoman declined to say this week whether anyone at the facility had done so. However, following the Jan. 31 publication of the initial AP story about Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest, hospital administrators opened an internal inquiry to determine which staff members spoke to the media, according to internal communications released by AP.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted a link to an earlier AP story about Castañeda Mondragón, but his office did not say whether state authorities would seek answers.
“Law enforcement cannot be lawless,” Walz wrote in the post on X. “Thousands of aggressive and untrained agents of the federal government continue to injure and terrorize Minnesotans. This must end.”
Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest came a day after the first of two fatal shootings of US citizens in Minneapolis by immigration officials, which sparked widespread public protests.
Elected officials demand accountability
Minnesota congressional leaders and other elected officials, including St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, this week called for an investigation into Castañeda Mondragón’s injuries.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which oversees St. Paul, urged Castañeda Mondragón to file a police report to prompt an investigation. He said he plans to file a complaint. A spokesperson for the San Paul police said that the department will investigate “all alleged crimes that are reported to us.”
While the Trump administration insists that ICE limits its operations to immigrants with violent rap sheets, Castañeda Mondragón has no criminal record.
“We are seeing a repeated pattern of Trump Administration officials trying to lie and gaslight the American people when it comes to the cruelty of this ICE operation in Minnesota,” said Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, in a statement.
Rep. Kelly Morrison, another Democrat and a physician, recently toured the Whipple Building, the ICE facility in Ft. Snelling. She said she saw severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and an almost complete lack of medical care.
“If any of our police officers did this, you know what just happened in Minnesota with George Floyd, we will hold them accountable,” said Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, whose district includes St. Paul.
Castañeda Mondragón, a native of Veracruz, Mexico, came to Minnesota nearly four years ago on a temporary work visa and found jobs as a driver and roofer. He uses his earnings to support his elderly father, who is disabled and diabetic, and his 10-year-old daughter.
On the day of his arrest, he was running errands with a friend when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by ICE agents. They started breaking the windows and opening the doors of the vehicle. He said that the first person who hit him “got ugly with me because I was Mexican” and he did not have documents showing his immigration status.
About four hours after his arrest, court records show, Castañeda Mondragón was taken to an emergency room in suburban Edina with swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. He was then transferred to the Minneapolis medical center, where he told staff he had been “dragged and mistreated by federal agents,” before his condition worsened, court records show.
A week after his hospitalization, his caregivers described him as minimally responsive. As his condition slowly improved, hospital staff gave him his cell phone, and he spoke to his son in Mexico, who he could not remember.
“I am your daughter,” she told him. “I left when I was 6.”
His head injuries erased his daughter’s unforgettable past experiences, including his birthday parties and the day he left for the U.S. She has been trying to rekindle his memory in daily calls.
“When I turned 5, she taught me how to dance for the first time,” she reminded him recently.
“All these moments, really, for me, I forgot,” he said.
He showed gradual improvement and, to the surprise of some who treated him, was released from hospital on 27 January.
A long recovery lies ahead
He faces a long recovery and an uncertain future. There are questions about whether he will be able to continue supporting his family back in Mexico. “My family depends on me,” he said.
Although his bruises are gone, the effects of his traumatic brain injuries linger. In addition to his memory problems, he also has balance and coordination issues that can be debilitating for a man whose job requires climbing up and down ladders. He said he can’t swim by himself without help.
“Now I can’t climb on a roof,” he said.
Castañeda Mondragón, who does not have health insurance, said doctors have told him he needs ongoing care. Unable to make a living, he is relying on support from his friends and members of the Minneapolis-St. Paul community who are raising money to help provide food, housing and medical care. He launched a GoFundMe.
Still, he hopes to stay in the United States and provide for his loved ones again one day. He makes a distinction between the people in Minnesota, where he said he felt welcome, and the federal officials who beat him.
“It is a great luck to have survived, to be able to be in this country again, to be able to heal, and to try to move forward,” he said. “For me, it’s the best luck in the world.”
But when he closes his eyes at night, the fear of ICE officers coming for him dominates his dreams. He is now afraid to leave his apartment, he said.
“I left you with the nightmare of going to work and being stopped,” said Castañeda Mondragón, “or that you are buying your food somewhere, your lunch, and they show up and stop you again. They hit you.”
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Biesecker reported from Washington. Mustian reported from New York, and Attanasio reported from Seattle.
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Brook is a staff member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national non-profit service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues.