Trump-Appointed Judge Rules ICE Violated Constitutional Rights of Minnesota Detainees — Drops Hammer in Strict Order

AP Photo/John Locher

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump issued a sharply-worded opinion Thursday ruling that the administration had violated the constitutional rights of detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Minnesota, and granted a temporary restraining order with strict new requirements for the ICE agents.

The tactics used during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown (known as “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota) have been loudly criticized and sparked nationwide protests and multiple court challenges, especially after two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 by Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. Recent polling shows public opinion souring on the immigration crackdown, even among Republicans.

Thursday’s ruling, flagged by Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, was written by Judge Nancy Brasel, who previously served as a federal prosecutor and Minnesota state judge. She has been on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota since Trump appointed her in 2018.

In Brasel’s 41-page ruling, she blasts ICE for the “threadbare declarations…without examples or evidence” offered by the federal government’s attorneys claiming that noncitizens detained at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building were granted telephone access to their legal counsel.

Brasel noted that the plaintiffs had provided ample and detailed evidence that the thousands of detainees at Whipple were systematically being denied access to their attorneys but “little submitted by Defendants,” the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, and several other senior federal immigration officials.

The judge found persuasive the plaintiff’s arguments that “Defendants’ policies and practices at Whipple all but extinguish a detainee’s access to counsel,” including the fact that immigration officers at Whipple were able to provide access to counsel before Operation Metro Surge, ICE’s common practice of transferring detainees “frequently, quickly, without notice, and often with no way for attorneys to know where or how long they will be at a given facility,” defendants’ repeated failures to “accurately or timely input information into the Online Detainee Locator System,” detainees only being allowed one phone call (“Many people do not know the name, much less the number, of their attorney—if they have one—so calls are usually to family”), and detainees not being allowed to send mail or email.

The plaintiffs also submitted affidavits from attorneys who attempted to visit their clients at Whipple but were denied and “threatened with arrest by…heavily armed personnel,” said their clients were pressured by ICE agents “to sign voluntary removal forms (i.e., self-deportation) without being allowed to talk to counsel,” and that ICE agents had lied to their clients about the status of their habeas petitions and other legal rights.

“All of these barriers make it difficult—if not impossible—for attorneys to effectively represent their clients,” wrote Brasel.

In reaching her ruling, Brasel bluntly rejected the government’s arguments that providing access to counsel and the other requested accommodations was overly burdensome, a strain on resources, impossible because of overcrowding or security concerns, and so on, finding that the defendants could not decide to send “thousands of agents to Minnesota,” detain “thousands of people,” but then claim they “suddenly lack resources when it comes to protecting detainees’ constitutional rights”:

Defendants may not properly choose a facility that is unfit for a particular purpose and then use the inadequacies of the facility as a justification to deprive detainees of meaningful, confidential access to legal counsel to the extent demanded by the Constitution…

It appears that in planning for Operation Metro Surge, the government failed to plan for the constitutional rights of its civil detainees. The government suggests—with minimal explanation and even less evidence—that doing so would result in “chaos.” The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.

The judge granted a temporary restraining order, exercising the court’s discretion to waive bond, with a strict list of requirements for the defendants, with multiple sections bolded for emphasis (some of which are quoted below).

Under the TRO, all noncitizens detained at Whipple must be given a list of documents “within one hour of their detention and prior to being transferred out of state” that includes a printed copy of Brasel’s order and “a list of accurate telephone numbers for current free legal service providers” in the area. The documents also have to be provided in “English, Spanish, Somali, French, and Hmong,” and translators provided for any detainee who is illiterate or not proficient in those languages.

Detainees also must be given “reasonable and equitable access to telephones… that is “free, private, and unmonitored…[w]ithin one hour of detention and prior to being transferred,” and be allowed “to make the number of calls necessary to reach counsel or family.”

Detainees are further to be provided “with access to confidential telephone calls with their legal representation at no charge,” and the order spelled out sharp limits on what restrictions or limits ICE could put on those calls, including guaranteeing a minimum call length “no shorter than 20 minutes.”

The order also requires ICE to “ensure that the Online Detainee Locator System…accurately identifies the location of each Detainee by name, date of birth, and A-number in real time,” and says ICE “shall not transfer a Detainee out of Minnesota during the first 72 hours of their detention.”

If ICE is going to transfer a detainee, then they “shall inform the Detainee of the transfer destination” and “provide the Detainee with the opportunity to use the telephone until they are able to reach counsel or family.”

“Legal visitation shall be permitted seven days per week, for a minimum of eight hours per day on business days (Monday through Friday), and a minimum of four hours per day on weekends and holidays,” the order states, with private rooms provided.

The order adds a warning about not retaliating against any plaintiff or other detainee and directs ICE to disseminate notice of the order to all agents at Whipple within 12 hours.

Brasel’s order is effective until Friday, February 26, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. CST.

The next procedural step in the case is a status conference on Feb. 24, for the court to hear status updates, requests for modification(s) of the TRO, and determine if a second hearing is needed (if so, that second hearing will be on Feb. 26).

Read the ruling here.

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