MADISON, S.D. — A Madison man with legal status to work in the United States for more than 40 years was detained by immigration officials outside a local grocery store earlier this month and remains in custody in Minnesota.The family of Luiz Enrique Rodriguez-Jimenez, 60, took to social media in the wake of the incident to raise money to hire a lawyer and unravel what’s next. Their campaign has drawn attention regionwide but the case is complicated by Rodriguez-Jimenez’s criminal history and the murky policies surrounding legal permanent residents as the Department of Homeland Security has carried out the Trump Administration’s effort to find and deport immigrants.“We weren’t expecting it,” Luiz Rodrigues, Rodriguez-Jimenez’s son, said in an interview with the Madison Daily Leader on Wednesday. “He’s been a legal resident my whole life.”Rodriguez-Jimenez, who was born in Mexico, has a past felony and several misdemeanor convictions. Currently, he is facing charges in Lake County, including five counts of violating a protection order and one count of violating a protection order by stalking.Immigration and Customs Enforcement picked up Rodriguez-Jimenez outside Sunshine Foods on Feb. 18, Madison Police Department Police Chief Justin Meyer and a Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputy said separately. Neither law enforcement organization was involved. A voicemail left with a public information officer for Homeland Security Investigations was not returned.Rodrigues, who lives in California, learned of the arrest from his brother in Flandreau, and the word spread through the family. ICE agent outside of Manitou America in Madison, S.D., on May 13, 2025.Wren Murphy / Madison Daily Leader Agents told his father that they were detaining him to assess if he was still eligible for legal permanent resident status, Rodrigues said. No one had been aware of any potential immigration issues with his father before this, he said.He added he was “pretty disgusted” with the situation, explaining it has been challenging to speak to his father and that the family experienced difficulties in finding out where he was being held. “To speak to the randomness of it, they got him at the grocery store,” Rodrigues said.The family is currently seeking a lawyer for the case, according to Rodrigues, social media posts by another relative and a GoFundMe posted in support of the family.The GoFundMe aims to support Rodriguez-Jimenez and his legal costs. The fundraiser had raised $8,360 from 116 donations as of 9 a.m. on Feb. 26.Another family member declined to comment, citing a desire to find a lawyer for their father first.Green card holders, or legal permanent residents, are not citizens, but they have permission to live and work in the country, travel abroad and receive certain public benefits. They can lose their legal status if convicted of certain crimes based on the decision of an immigration judge, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.Immigrants can only lose their legal permanent resident status if they abandon their status, such as by moving to another country to live there permanently, or if an immigration judge issues a final removal order against them, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.Sioux Falls immigration attorney Henry Evans, speaking in general on immigration and not to the specifics of the case, said that legal permanent residents can be placed in removal proceedings, meaning they are up for deportation, if they have been convicted of an aggravated felony. Evans explained certain state misdemeanor charges count as an aggravated felony on a federal immigration level. Under federal law, an aggravated felony includes murder, rape or sexual abuse of a minor, trafficking of controlled substances or certain weapons, money laundering and certain violent offenses, including domestic violence in certain cases, among others. ICE agent outside of Manitou America in Madison, S.D., on May 13, 2025.Wren Murphy / Madison Daily Leader A legal permanent resident can also be deported if they are convicted of a crime involving “moral turpitude” within five years of admission to the U.S. or convicted of a crime that did or can result in a jail sentence of one year or more, he explained. In that instance, admission includes not just an individual’s first entry to the country but also reentry after an international trip, he said.Since pleading guilty to these types of crimes can affect immigration eligibility, defense attorneys are required to inform clients about the possible risks to their legal status. The U.S. Supreme Court case of Padilla v. Commonwealth of Kentucky defined this precedent, Evans said.Rodriguez-Jimenez was convicted of felony domestic assault in California in October 1993 and domestic simple assault in Iowa in November 2003, according to Lake County court documents. In May 2024, he pleaded guilty to domestic simple assault, a misdemeanor, in Lake County. The following year, he pleaded guilty to violating a protection order held by the victim of the May 2024 case.In January 2026, the Lake County state's attorney’s office charged Rodriguez-Jimenez with five counts of violating a protective order and one count of violating a protective order by stalking against the same victim as in previous cases. He had a court date for these alleged violations scheduled for Feb. 25, 2026. It was rescheduled to March for reasons unrelated to the arrest, according to staff at the Lake County Clerk of Courts office.Evans said that the federal government taking action to deport an immigrant facing local charges creates a question of the balance of power. While ICE may be interested in deporting an individual for previous cases or pending charges, local prosecutors and alleged victims might want to see the case move forward. It’s a question legal scholars and different levels of government are still working on, he added.“The individual’s future criminal history hasn’t been resolved,” Evans said.President Trump has ramped up deportation efforts since his return to office, including against immigrants with and without legal status. The Department of Homeland Security said in January 2026 that it had deported more than 675,000 immigrants without legal status in 2025.The U.S. has previously deported individuals with green cards after criminal convictions and, in some cases, arrested those immigrants in public spaces, Evans said. He has not personally seen an uptick in those cases, though he stressed that is among his clients and his experience doesn’t necessarily represent a trend.Masked ICE agents in unmarked vehicles raided Manitou America and Global Polymer in Madison in May 2025 and arrested eight individuals charged with being in the country without legal authorization. The same day, ICE undertook immigration investigations at at least one Madison residence, according to an assertion by the Madison Police Department. ICE did not release additional information on the residential investigation or any other local ICE activities related to the May 2024 enforcement actions.