A federal court has stepped into the fallout of a sweeping immigration crackdown in Minnesota, ruling that detainees were effectively shut out from their lawyers during a recent enforcement surge.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel found that actions taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during what authorities called “Operation Metro Surge” severely undermined detainees’ constitutional right to counsel.
Her order, issued from the federal bench, temporarily bars ICE from rapidly transferring detainees out of the state and compels the agency to provide meaningful access to legal visits and private phone calls. The directive will remain in place for 14 days as the case proceeds.
At the center of the dispute: speed and silence.
According to the ruling, many detainees were processed at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, then swiftly moved across state lines—sometimes without notice to their attorneys. In some cases, transfers happened so quickly and so often that even ICE struggled to track where individuals had been sent.
Judge Brasel wrote that the combination of fast relocations and restricted phone access “all but extinguish” access to counsel. While ICE maintained it has no policy prohibiting legal access and does not dispute detainees’ constitutional rights, the court concluded that the reality on the ground told a different story.
The lawsuit, filed by Democracy Forward, argues that detainees were held in a facility not designed for extended custody, shackled, and moved out of state without transparency—all while struggling to contact lawyers.
One example cited in the decision involved a 20-year-old asylum seeker who held a valid U.S. work permit. After being detained, he was transferred first to Texas, then to New Mexico, before ultimately returning to Minnesota. Over 18 days in custody—despite a separate order calling for his release after five—he said he was never told why he had been detained or why he was later freed.
In another instance described by the court, 72 detainees shared two flip phones in a single holding cell. Calls were reportedly limited to two minutes per person. Other calls took place in open areas, where conversations could be overheard by officers or fellow detainees.
The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back on claims of systemic obstruction, stating that detainees have access to telephones for contacting both lawyers and family members. Officials also denied that the Minneapolis federal building was overcrowded.
But the judge was unconvinced by what she described as “threadbare” explanations. She noted that while federal authorities deployed substantial manpower to carry out the enforcement surge, they could not claim a sudden lack of resources when it came to safeguarding constitutional protections.
For now, the court’s order redraws the boundaries: no rapid out-of-state transfers and no legal conversations conducted under a cloud of surveillance. As proceedings continue, the case places a spotlight on how far enforcement operations can go before they collide with the right to counsel.
