Immigration officials silent after another graduate student detained – this time, at the University of Minnesota

By Kelly Murray and Sabrina Souza, CNN

(CNN) — Local, state and national leaders are demanding answers from immigration enforcement after the detention of yet another university student.

The University of Minnesota says US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained an international graduate student on Thursday, according to a letter to the school community posted Friday.

The student, enrolled on the Twin Cities campus, was detained at an off-campus residence and the school is actively working to gather more details, according to the letter from school officials.

Many questions still remain unanswered: It is unclear what the student has been accused of, what their immigration status is or where they have been detained.

The university did not identify the student, but called their arrest “a deeply concerning situation” in the letter.

A spokesperson with the university declined to provide additional comment due to “privacy obligations to students under state and federal law.”

The detainment comes as several foreign nationals affiliated with prestigious American universities have been arrested amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The series of arrests and deportation proceedings the Trump administration has brought against students and scholars has sent shock waves across the academic community and raised concerns about the protection of free speech.

It is unclear where the University of Minnesota student is being held, but delayed communication from ICE about students’ whereabouts has happened in other cases this month. Like the University of Minnesota student, several were detained near their homes.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist at Columbia University, was detained outside his New York apartment, taken to New Jersey and then transported to Louisiana. “​​I felt like Mahmoud had been kidnapped from our home, and no one could tell me where he was or what was happening to him,” his wife Noor Abdalla said in a statement of support.

Khan Suri, an Indian national in the US for doctoral research at Georgetown University, was detained by ICE officials in Chantilly, Virginia, and sent to a temporary holding facility in Louisiana before getting transferred to Prairieland Detention Center in Texas. “ICE agents came in the night, took him captive, taking him from his wife and children, and hauled him away to an unknown location before transferring him to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, far from his family and attorneys,” lawyer Nermeen Arastu said.

Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk was taken near her home in Massachusetts but also ultimately ended up in Louisiana. Her friends, family and attorneys remained unable to locate or contact her for about 24 hours after her arrest, an amended habeas corpus petition said.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the University of Minnesota case, deferring to ICE, which did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

An attorney for the detained student declined comment to CNN, saying it’s a “highly sensitive situation” and they want to protect their client’s privacy. The attorney said she has been in contact with her client, but it is unclear how long it took her to reach the student after they were detained.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in a post on X she and her office are in contact with the university and are doing “all we can to get information about this concerning case.”

The school had no prior knowledge of their student’s detainment and did not share any information with federal authorities before it occurred, said the letter to the school community, signed by university President Rebecca Cunningham, Vice President for Student Affairs Calvin Phillips and Vice President for Equity and Diversity Mercedes Ramírez Fernández.

“It is important to note that our campus departments of public safety, including UMPD, do not enforce federal immigration laws, and our officers do not inquire about an individual’s immigration status,” the statement read.

‘We need answers’

The silence from ICE on the detention has prompted urgent questions from state and local officials.

“I just spoke with Homeland Security to get more information and I will share when I learn more,” Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on X. “The University of Minnesota is an international destination for education and research. We have any number of students studying here with visas, and we need answers.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey posted on X, “The recent detainment of a U of M student is deeply troubling. Educational environments must be places where all students can focus on learning and growing without fear. I’m in contact with the U and closely monitoring the situation.”

“What stood out to me was the lack of information,” Democratic Minnesota state Sen. Doron Clark told CNN affiliate KARE. “We don’t know where the student is, we don’t know the student’s name, we just don’t know what happened … The only way we found out was not from the federal government … I think the blindness to what is going on is maddening, and it’s frightening,” Clark, who represents parts of the university area, told KARE.

“We need a rapid response from leaders at all levels on what we can do to protect everyone in our community,” Democratic state Sen. Omar Fateh said on social media.

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CNN’s Kara Devlin and Hanna Park contributed to this report.