Minnesota officials seek answers after Ice detains graduate student

Officials in Minnesota were seeking answers in the case of a University of Minnesota graduate student who was being detained by US immigration authorities for unknown reasons.

University leadership said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained the student on Thursday at an off-campus residence. Officials said the school was not given advance notice about the detention and did not share information with federal authorities. The student’s name and nationality have not been released.

As the case remained largely a mystery, state and local leaders called on federal authorities to explain their actions.

“My office and I are doing all we can to get information about this concerning case,” the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar said in a post on the social media site X. “We’re in contact with the University and understand they had no prior warning or information that led to this detainment.”

She said that international students are “a major part of the fabric of life in the school and our community”.

People protest after the University of Minnesota reported a student was detained by Ice. Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

The detained student was enrolled in business school at the university’s Twin Cities campus. University officials said the school was providing the student with legal aid and other support services.

What prompted the detention is still unknown. Ice officials have not responded to an Associated Press email requesting comment.

The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, said on X that he was in touch with the US Department of Homeland Security.

“The University of Minnesota is an international destination for education and research,” Walz wrote. “We have any number of students studying here with visas, and we need answers.”

The Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, also called the case “deeply troubling”.

“Educational environments must be places where all students can focus on learning and growing without fear,” he wrote on X.

Officials promised to release more information about the case once they had updates.

US immigration authorities have been targeting people with ties to American colleges and universities as President Donald Trump seeks to crackdown on immigrants. Most of the detainees have shown support for Palestinian causes.

The Trump administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests. More than half a dozen people are known to have been taken into custody or deported in recent weeks.

In Minneapolis, the university’s graduate labor union organized a protest on Saturday outside the US citizenship and immigration services office downtown, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Dozens of people joined the rally to stand in solidarity with international students facing uncertain futures under the new Trump administration.

“International students are huge assets to the University of Minnesota,” Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota said in a Facebook post. “They move thousands of miles away from their families and support systems to learn from the best and the brightest. I can’t imagine how terrified they are after learning ICE has detained one of their classmates.”