A familiar pattern developed during the federal government’s massive deportation operation in Minnesota: Despite showing documents proving active immigration cases, pending visas, or even US citizenship, residents were arrested and detained for days or weeks.

But many who were later set free are now encountering a new challenge: ICE isn’t giving back their immigration documents.

Again and again, according to 10 immigration lawyers interviewed for this story, immigrants in Minnesota have been released from detention centers without the work permits, Social Security cards, licenses, and other documents that prove their status.

“As far as I can tell, it’s the practice of ICE to throw everybody’s documents into a black box and then lose it.”

“I can’t think of a client I’ve had detained that did not have their documents taken,” says Maria Miller, chair of the Minnesota and Dakotas chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She estimates that 35 of her clients have come out of detention with missing documents.

“It’s more the rule than the exception that people generally are not given their stuff back,” says Graham Ojala-Barbour, a Minneapolis immigration attorney. “As far as I can tell, it’s the practice of ICE to throw everybody’s documents into a black box and then lose it.”

Isabel, a 41-year-old single mother of two from Honduras, was arrested in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis, at her monthly immigration check-in last month. (Isabel’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.) Her lawyer immediately filed a habeas petition, demanding her release from custody. According to court records, Isabel has a pending asylum case, no criminal history, and a five-year work permit, which she uses to work at a factory making baked goods. She was detained for four days in three different places before a federal judge ordered her release, stipulating that the government return Isabel’s belongings and immigration documents.

But when an agent at the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE operations in Minneapolis are based, brought Isabel a plastic bag with her belongings, she opened her wallet to find that her work permit and state ID were missing. Also missing were two checks that she hadn’t yet cashed, worth more than $700, and her daughter’s US passport, which she’d brought to the immigration check-in. When she asked about the missing items, she was told they were probably left behind at one of the jails where Isabel was detained. She eventually got back the checks, but to date, ICE has not returned the other documents.

In the meantime, without her work permit and license, she feels even more vulnerable than she was before her arrest. “When I leave work or go to work, I’m shaking because I’m afraid that I’ll get........

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