Ricky Chandee, a 52-year-old engineering technician for the city of Minneapolis and a Laotian refugee, was detained by ICE agents at his home in Brooklyn Park on January 24 amid a surge of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Chandee, who fled Laos after the Vietnam War and never naturalized as a U.S. citizen, was targeted over a drive-by shooting conviction from more than three decades earlier. He was transported to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where he faced possible deportation to Laos. His case was reported alongside other Laotian refugees in Minnesota being deported at high rates under the Trump administration's mass deportation push, despite decades spent building lives and careers in the state. On May 4, 2026, the Minnesota Board of Pardons unanimously granted Chandee a pardon, one day before his scheduled deportation, potentially eliminating the legal basis for his removal.