Antonia Aguilar Maldonado, 25, entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor in 2016 after being abandoned by her parents in El Salvador. She requested asylum and was placed with a relative.
The living situation didn’t work out and Maldonado ended up leaving the relatives and lost track of her asylum case. Her failure to appear in court led to a removal order, and in June 2024 she began working with her attorney to revive her asylum request.
Meanwhile, Maldonado got married, had two children and settled in Lake Elmo, where she ran a painting business with her husband. She’s active in her church and 14 friends and family members wrote letters in support of her release, her attorney said.
On July 17, Antonia and her husband were stopped and arrested in St. Paul, MN while on their way to work by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The federal government is seeking to deport her for failing to appear in court in 2019 after she requested asylum.
Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said ICE’s treatment of mothers of young children, especially those who are nursing, was more humane under previous administrations. Moms were typically released on bond or to home confinement unless they were dangerous.
That policy, last updated in 2021 under President Joe Biden, is now “archived and not reflective of current practice,” according to ICE’s website.
“This just seems unnecessarily cruel,” Decker said. “What we are seeing with the current administration is that it is becoming the norm.”
Immigration Judge Kalin Ivany set a $10,000 bond for Maldonado during a July 31 hearing at the Fort Snelling Immigration Court. Aguilar Maldonado’s Rios de Agua Viva church community, where she is a Sunday school teacher, in St. Paul helped raise the money to cover her $10,000 bond.
Even though Antonia had the money for her bond, the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appealed the bond decision, leaving Maldonado in detention. While she was in detention, her husband was deported.
Antonia’s lawyers appealed the decision based on the DHS’s own policy to not separate nursing babies from their mothers, and Antonia was finally released from ICE custody on Wednesday, August 13, 2025. Her release came a day after a senior U.S. District Court Judge ordered Antonia Aguilar Maldonado to be freed on bond as her immigration case plays out.
"The breast milk that she's feeding her toddler is the only thing that her toddler can take,” she added. “He is allergic to other forms of milk. And so, unfortunately, this baby has been without his mother's milk now for 26 days, and she wants to get to him right away and start nursing."
https://www.startribune.com/lawyer-asks-federal-court-release-mom-ice/601453212
https://www.fox9.com/news/ice-release-antonia-aguilar-maldonado-mn