A federal court is now being asked to free a Robbinsdale father whose early-morning arrest on his own porch — filmed by his daughter as she pleaded that he was 'in the process of getting papers' — has become one of the most contested immigration arrests in Minnesota this month. Jose Ruelas Viorato, 45, was taken into custody by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the doorway of his home shortly after 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 11, FOX 9 reported.
Source: FOX 9
Video shot from the front lawn, and a second recording from a neighbour reported by MPR News, show Ruelas Viorato clinging to a post on his covered porch as the agents — one of them masked — pull at him, at one point partly handcuffed, while his daughter's voice carries over the scene asking why they are taking him. WCCO reported that an agent punched him in the face before he was loaded into an unmarked SUV; his attorney makes the same allegation, saying an agent announced he would punch him and then did so. The exact sequence is hard to confirm from the available camera angles, so the punch is reported here as an allegation backed by the family's account and local television reporting, not as an independently verified finding.
Source: WCCO
Robbinsdale's own police were not part of the operation. The department said it received a 911 call from the home at 7:13 a.m. and that its officers arrived about 12 minutes later — after the federal agents had already left, according to FOX 9's reporting of the department's account.
The court filing: 'The agents did not know who he was'
Ruelas Viorato's attorney, Carrie Huxford Peltier, has petitioned a federal court to order his release. In the filing, she says the agents had no warrant, that ICE has never tried to deport her client, and that — in her words — 'the agents did not know who Mr. Ruelas Viorato was' when they approached him. The filing says he has a legal path to citizenship, and a public support petition published on November 13 repeats the family's account that he has called Minnesota home for nearly 30 years.
On his record, the reporting is consistent on one point: no history of violence. FOX 9 and WCCO, citing court records, describe only traffic violations and a petty misdemeanour for trespassing at a campground. He is being held at the Sherburne County Jail, the Minnesota jail that holds ICE detainees.
What is solid
- Two ICE agents arrested Jose Ruelas Viorato, 45, at his Robbinsdale home on the morning of November 11, and his daughter filmed the arrest.
- Robbinsdale police received a 911 call at 7:13 a.m. and arrived after the federal agents had left; city officers took no part in the operation.
- He is in custody at Sherburne County Jail, and his attorney has asked a federal court to order his release.
- The Department of Homeland Security has not explained the arrest.
What is only claimed
- His attorney alleges the agents had no warrant and did not know who he was; ICE has neither confirmed nor denied this.
- His attorney and WCCO report that an agent punched him in the face; the available video angles make the exact sequence difficult to confirm independently.
- His precise immigration status has not been made public; his filing says he has a legal path to citizenship and was in the process of getting papers.
Silence from Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to press requests about the arrest or the reason for it, and FOX 9 reports that no explanation has been given. In WCCO's report, an immigration expert noted that ICE is arresting more people who have no criminal history — the pattern the family says this arrest fits.
Challenges like this one are brought as habeas petitions: the detained person asks a federal judge to rule that the detention itself is unlawful and to order release. Minnesota judges have decided a series of such petitions this year, and on November 6 this site reported the release of another Minnesota man after a warrantless ICE arrest — a separate case, but the same legal route Ruelas Viorato's lawyer is now using.
What happens next
A federal judge must now decide the petition. Supporters are asking ICE to release Ruelas Viorato immediately and send him home to his family while the judge decides — the position set out in the November 13 public petition in his name. Until the court rules or ICE acts, he remains at Sherburne County Jail, and the central questions his lawyer has raised — whether a warrant existed, and what the agents believed they were acting on — remain unanswered by the government.
For immigrant families — including Punjabi families in the Midwest — this case turns on questions that recur in home arrests across the United States: whether agents need a warrant at a home's doorway, what happens when the person detained says papers are in process, and how quickly a federal judge can review the detention. The court's answer here will be watched well beyond Robbinsdale.