A high-stakes hearing Friday will bring the immigration crackdown in Minnesota to a head in the courts, as the nation's top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official will be forced to take the stand to explain the agency's aggressive surge.
"The Court's patience is at an end," Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge of Minnesota's federal district court, wrote Monday.
Schiltz's contempt threat against acting ICE Director Todd Lyons comes as the court has been overwhelmed with lawsuits challenging the agency's tactics and Trump administration's efforts to shield it from scrutiny.
Minnesota is suing to get ICE out of the Twin Cities. Local prosecutors want a judge to provide access to evidence in this weekend's shooting. Civil rights interests are challenging ICE's protest tactics.
And dozens of migrants caught up in the surge have filed individual cases contesting their own circumstances.
It's led to an inflection point that will put Lyons on the stand.
Schiltz said the court has been "extremely patient" with the administration, even as thousands of agents descended on Minnesota to detain noncitizens without a plan for the hundreds of legal challenges that were "sure to result."
Roughly 3,000 ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel are on the ground in the Minneapolis area conducting enforcement, the government disclosed in a court filing this week.
"Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward," the chief judge wrote.
"Unfortunately, though, the violations continue," he said.
Schiltz is an appointee of former President George W. Bush.
The judge's scolding came in the case of Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, who said he was still detained despite a judge ruling that the Trump administration must afford him a bond hearing or release him.
He's one of hundreds of migrants who've challenged the legality of their detention via what is known as a habeas petition. Several hundred have been filed in Minnesota since the start of Operation Metro Surge, The Gavel's review of court dockets found.
The immigration crackdown in Minnesota also pits the Trump administration against state leaders, as officials pursue competing probes and messaging about the surge in the wake of two fatal shootings.
Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE officer on Jan. 7 following an apparent confrontation.
Video footage showed her SUV surrounded by several officers, one pulling on the driver-side door handle and another telling her to "get out of the f---ing car." The officer who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, approached the car from the front and fired as the wheels turned. With Good shot, the vehicle crashed into a parked car on the side of the road.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed that Good attempted to use her car as a weapon to run Ross over and that he was hit, though the videos make neither clear.
Then, on Saturday, ICU nurse Alex Pretti, 37, was gunned down by a Border Patrol agent.
Video footage of that shooting showed Pretti recording with his phone before the incident escalated, when federal officers realized that he was in possession of a gun.
The firearm, which Pretti legally held, appeared to have been taken out of the nurse's possession by officers before he was shot and was not in his hands at any visible point. It appears at least 10 shots were fired, according to several video analyses.
DHS officials, who later came under fire by Democrats and Republicans for their initial response, suggested Pretti "committed an act of domestic terrorism" and "wanted to massacre law enforcement," though the evidence available does not support those conclusions.
Hours later, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's (D) and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty's offices sued. They sought to preserve all evidence, saying that federal personnel had ordered state and local investigators to leave and were potentially letting evidence spoil.
"From a law enforcement perspective, this is astonishing," the emergency motion read. "The federal government's actions are a sharp departure from normal best practices and procedure, in which every effort is taken to preserve the scene and the evidence it contains."
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee. He held a hearing Monday. He did not issue a decision, but Tostrud mandated the evidence be preserved in the meantime.
The Justice Department has told Tostrud there's no need for him to intervene, as federal policies already require evidence preservation. The government submitted sworn declarations from officials at ICE, FBI and CBP to support their assertion that the policies are being followed.
"HSI Special Agents routinely participate in the criminal discovery process and are well-versed in the Government's Constitutional obligations when cases culminate in a prosecution," wrote Mark Zito, who runs an St. Paul-based investigatory office within ICE that Zito said is leading the federal probe.
Just hours before Tostrud's hearing, another judge in the same courthouse heard Ellison's bid to send the surge of federal personnel in Minnesota back home.
That case landed before U.S. District Katherine Menendez, an appointee of former President Biden. After the hearing, she ordered the parties to submit additional arguments in writing. A ruling is expected after the final brief comes due Wednesday evening.
As the state pushes in court, private plaintiffs are also moving.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents six Minnesota residents challenging tactics federal personnel are allegedly using to respond to the flood of protests.
Menendez got that case, too. She had blocked federal agents from retaliating against peaceful demonstrators or using pepper spray and non-lethal munitions against them, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted it Monday evening until it resolves the administration's appeal.
It's the 8th Circuit's first major ruling on Operation Metro Surge. The flood of litigation in the district court may soon follow.
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