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Minnesota News
Matt Sepic
Minneapolis

On judge's order, DHS releases jailed MSU Mankato international student

Doğukan Günaydın's case
Homeland Security vehicles marked with the Federal Protective Service logo is parked outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, Minn., on Tuesday, April 15, during the immigration court hearing for University of Minnesota student Doğukan Günaydın.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News

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A Minnesota State University Mankato international student is out of jail on bond after a federal judge ordered authorities to release him more than a month after he was arrested.

Immigration agents David Whereatt and Jacob Henkemeyer arrested Mohammed Hoque outside his apartment March 28 on an order from supervisor Michael Hyland.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that the 20-year-old native of Bangladesh is a public safety threat because of a 2023 misdemeanor conviction. Hoque pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after a fight. No one was hurt.

Hoque alleges the Trump Administration is targeting him because of his outspoken support for Palestinian human rights.

In ordering his release Monday, U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell writes that Hoque's "First Amendment claim is clear on the law and on the facts," and that the Department of Homeland Security has presented no evidence justifying his arrest and continued detention.

“While we celebrate that Mr. Hoque has been reunited with his family, we are deeply aware that Mr. Hoque should never have been detained in the first place,” American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota Legal Director Teresa Nelson, who is one of Hoque’s attorneys, said in a statement. “We know Mr. Hoque can’t recoup the 40 days he spent in custody." 

Hoque noted in his lawsuit that while the misdemeanor case was pending in June of 2023, he flew home to Bangladesh, and immigration authorities did not deny him reentry to the United States even after questioning him about the incident.

Hoque is one of at least three international students studying in Minnesota whom immigration agents arrested since late March and are attempting to remove from the United States because of misdemeanor convictions.

Doğukan Günaydın, a University of Minnesota graduate student from Turkey, was arrested March 27. An immigration judge dismissed the removal case against him last week, but Günaydın, 28, remains in the Sherburne County Jail because the Department of Homeland Security appealed the judge’s decision. Günaydın, who pleaded guilty to drunk driving in 2024, is also challenging his detention in U.S. District Court.

Aditya Harsono, 33, is being held in the Kandiyohi County Jail and faces deportation to his native Indonesia after the government revoked his student visa based on a 2023 misdemeanor property damage conviction.

U.S. District Judge Judge Katherine Menendez this week ordered DHS not to move Harsono to a jail outside of Minnesota while his federal lawsuit is pending.