2 arrested by ICE at Brainerd restaurant make court appearances

BRAINERD — Two men arrested Monday, Jan. 26, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a downtown Brainerd restaurant appeared in federal court Thursday.

Francisco Javier Montoya-Barboza, a 35-year-old Mexican national, was arraigned on a single charge of improper entry of an alien. A first offense is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine, up to six months in prison, or both.

Jose Barajas-Farias, a 52-year-old Mexican national, was arraigned on a single charge of reentry of a removed alien, which is punishable as a felony with a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

Both pleaded not guilty to their charges.

Two other men arrested for “unlawful presence in the United States” as part of the same operation at El Potro Mexican Restaurant are being held pending removal proceedings, according to an ICE spokesperson.

ICE described Montoya-Barboza and Barajas-Farias as its “primary subjects.” There were no warrants associated with the other two arrests.

KAXE confirmed these two men are being held in the Crow Wing County Jail through its federal detainee contract. Because they have not been charged with crimes, KAXE is not naming them.

The Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Office assisted with the operation, confirmed in a news release late Monday. A request for comment from Sheriff Eric Klang was not returned Friday.

An ICE spokesperson reported it was executing judicial criminal arrest warrants for Montoya-Barboza and Barajas-Farias when ICE entered El Potro on Monday.

According to court documents, Barajas-Farias was indicted Dec. 18, 2025, and an arrest warrant was issued Jan. 13. Montoya-Barboza was indicted Jan. 13, and his arrest warrant was issued Jan. 14. Both were signed by Kate M. Fogarty, court clerk for the U.S. District Court of Minnesota.

Both men are in Douglas County, Wisconsin. The Douglas County Jail in Superior has a contract to hold ICE detainees, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Leo I. Brisbois set conditions of release for each of them and ordered they be released from U.S. Marshals Service custody after processing. The conditions noted they could be taken into ICE custody at that point, upon execution of immigration detainers.

If they were released, they would be required to surrender any foreign travel documents and travel would be restricted to within 50 miles of their residences in the Brainerd lakes area, except for meetings with legal counsel, for court appearances or otherwise pre-approved by pretrial services. They must also make their residences available for inspection.

Factual errors in criminal histories

ICE’s emailed statement from a spokesperson contained several factual errors, including a misspelled name for one of the men and a switched first and second name for another. Most notably, it listed the incorrect criminal backgrounds, appearing to have transposed them between Barajas-Farias and Montoya-Barboza.

According to Minnesota state court records, Barajas-Farias was convicted of gross misdemeanor driving while intoxicated in 2002 in Mower County. [In state court records, his name is listed as Jose Farias Barajas, but the birthdates are consistent.] ICE alleged Barajas-Farias was previously removed from the United States in 2007 and reentered without authorization in 2010.

Montoya-Barboza was convicted of a misdemeanor for liquor consumption by a person under 21 in Itasca County in 2010, five months before his 21st birthday, according to court records.

ICE did not report any other criminal convictions for the men with arrest warrants, nor the other two arrested without warrants as part of the operation.

Earlier this month, the ACLU of Minnesota sued the federal government to end what it describes as ICE’s and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s practice of suspicious-less stops, warrantless arrests and racial profiling of Minnesotans.