When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, he sustained injuries. How those injuries occurred isn’t clear, as the parties have offered two opposing reports.
According to the officers, he “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.”
Castañeda Mondragón denies that account.
“There was never a wall,” he said, claiming that ICE officers struck him with a metal rod they had previously used to break the windows of the vehicle he was in. He was referring to a telescoping baton carried by law enforcement, called an ASP.
In the hospital, a CT scan showed fractures to the front, back, and both sides of his skull. The doctor told AP the injuries were inconsistent with a fall.
He went on to claim that ICE agents mercilessly and gleefully beat him.
The AP reports that Castañeda Mondragón claims he was taken “to an ICE holding facility at Ft. Snelling in suburban Minneapolis,” where “officers resumed beating him.”
“Recognizing that he was seriously hurt, he said, he pleaded with them to stop but they just ‘laughed at me and hit me again,’” the AP reported.
“They were very racist people,” Castañeda Mondragón said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”
While the Trump administration has directed body cameras to be worn by immigration officers in Minneapolis, but it’s not known if Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest was captured on body-camera footage or any other video recording system.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, has not commented on the case.
The AP reports:
ICE deportation officer William J. Robinson did not say how Castañeda Mondragón’s skull was smashed in a Jan. 20 declaration filed in federal court. During the intake process, it was determined he “had a head injury that required emergency medical treatment,” he wrote in the filing.
The declaration also stated that Castañeda Mondragón entered the U.S. legally in March 2022, and that the agency determined only after his arrest that he had overstayed his visa. A federal judge later ruled his arrest had been unlawful and ordered him released from ICE custody.
A video posted to social media captured the moments immediately after Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest as four masked men walk him handcuffed through a parking lot. The video shows him unsteady and stumbling, held up by ICE officers.
“Don’t resist,” shouts the woman who is recording. “Cause they ain’t gonna do nothing but bang you up some more.”
“Hope they don’t kill you,” she adds.
“And y’all gave the man a concussion,” a male bystander shouts.
The witness who posted the video declined to speak with AP or provide consent for the video’s publication, but Castañeda Mondragón confirmed he is the handcuffed man seen in the recording.
Meanwhile, Castañeda Mondragón is seeking help with his medical bills. A GoFundMe account has been launched, and so far, as of Saturday afternoon, it has raised $14K.
Alberto Castañeda Mondragón remembers ICE agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul, Minnesota shopping center. https://t.co/hlNqHiLaK9
— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) February 7, 2026
The Dennis Michael Lynch Podcast archive is available below, with the most recent on top. Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show by downloading The DML News App or go to Apple Podcasts.
