St. Paul ICE raid warrant questioned; judge orders family freed

Federal agents with rifles stormed a house on Nevada Avenue East in St. Paul last Thursday, detaining six Venezuelan residents — including a 12‑year‑old boy — and sending them to two immigration detention centers in Texas, even though agents never showed a warrant at the door, according to a family friend and neighbors. On Monday, a federal judge ordered the government to release all six within 72 hours after DHS failed to meet a deadline to produce a warrant justifying the raid. The next day a supposed search warrant bearing a Ramsey County judge’s signature appeared on the doorstep, but it’s a state‑court document with no case number, no file stamp, no names or dates of birth, and no probable‑cause narrative, and court officials told FOX 9 they cannot verify its authenticity while noting law enforcement has up to 10 days to file an executed warrant. The document merely lists the address and generic categories of items (guns, ammo, drugs) to be seized, and reportedly agents told the family they were conducting a narcotics investigation even as all six were processed as immigration detainees. DHS has refused to answer questions about the raid or the warrant, leaving a major hole in the government’s story as St. Paul residents already on edge from the broader ICE surge now have to reckon with armed feds kicking in doors on the East Side without clear, lawful paperwork.