ICE Is Crashing the US Court System in Minnesota

Immigration and Operation Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota is pushing the American justice system to its breaking point.

Since Operation Metro Surge began in December, federal immigration agents have arrested some 4,000 people, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The result is a flood of complaints filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota on behalf of people challenging their imprisonment by federal immigration enforcement agents. According to WIRED’s review of court records and official court statistics, lawyers filed almost as many so-called habeas corpus petitions in Minnesota alone as there were in the United States in an entire year.

The bombardment of complaints in federal courts in Minnesota and other states is the result of two Trump administration policies: a dramatic increase in the number of people detained and the removal of a key legal mechanism for securing their release. The result is a U.S. justice system that is collapsing: Judges, immigration lawyers and federal prosecutors are all overwhelmed, while the people at the center of these cases remain behind bars, often in states thousands of miles from their homes — many after judges order their release.

“I never said the word habeas so many times in my life,” says Graham Ojala-Barbour, a Minnesota immigration attorney who has been practicing for more than a decade. Ojala-Barbour says that when he goes to sleep, his dreams are habeas petitions.

Exhaustion is endemic. On Feb. 3, Julie Le, now a former special assistant U.S. attorney, begged a U.S. judge in Minnesota to find her in contempt so she could finally get some rest. She was listed on 88 cases, according to data obtained through PACER, the U.S. court records database. Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota and head of Le’s office, previously told the judge in a letter that they were “struggling to keep up with the immense volume” of motions and had let at least one court order requiring the return of a petitioner pass. The did not respond to a request for comment. In response to a request for comment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota sent an automated response saying it was currently short a public information officer.

Le was reportedly fired after the February hearing, where she told the judge, “This job sucks.”

In response to a request for comment, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “The Trump Administration is more than prepared to handle the legal workload necessary to implement President Trump’s deportation agenda for the American people.” »

As heavy as the workload is for U.S. attorneys, the situation is far more dire for people detained by immigration authorities. In court records, those arrested describe being crammed into cells so full they couldn’t even sit down before being flown to detention centers in Texas. One of them described having to share cells with people sick with Covid. Others said officers repeatedly pressured them and other detainees to self-deport.

McLaughlin told WIRED, “All detainees receive adequate meals, water, medical care, and have the opportunity to communicate with family members and attorneys. All detainees receive due process.”

Ana Voss, the head of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, has been listed as one of the attorneys defending the government in nearly every habeas petition filed in Minnesota since Operation Metro Surge began. Before December, the majority of Voss-related cases involved other issues, such as Social Security and disability lawsuits. Since then, habeas petitions for detained immigrants have significantly taken precedence over all other issues.