Official image of U.S. District Judge Kate M. Menendez
Judges in Minnesota are said to be "inundated" with new immigration cases amid Donald Trump's statewide crackdown, with several excoriating the administration for arrests they say are "sometimes flagrantly" breaking the law, according to a new report from Politico.
On Friday, Politico's Kyle Cheney detailed the "hundreds of emergency lawsuits from immigrants targeted by ICE" in Minnesota's Twin Cities area during the agency's massive "Operation Metro Surge" crackdown. According to Cheney's findings, "in all but a handful of cases," these judges have ruled against the Trump administration, claiming that it "violated the law, sometimes flagrantly," with the arrests.
The report provided several examples of arrests raising alarms within the Minnesota judicial system: "A Myanmar refugee nursing a five-month-old, arrested and shipped to Texas. A Mexican man who sustained severe skull injuries during an arrest by ICE and was shackled in the hospital against doctors’ wishes. A Kenyan woman detained after picking up seizure medication. A Ukrainian refugee arrested for no apparent reason." All of this Cheney summed up as "In other words, an ordinary weekend for federal judges in Minnesota."
In the rulings against ICE and Trump's Department of Homeland Security, judges have hit back against what they perceived "as a pattern of defiance by the administration, shocking behavior by ICE and rampant targeting of people with no criminal history," clashing with Trump's claims that his mass deportation agenda would target "the worst of the worst" criminals.
“I think it kind of goes without saying that we are in shockingly unusual times,” Judge Kate Menendez said at the start of a hearing on Monday.
Judges involved in this pushback include appointees by every president since Reagan, Politico noted. The administration has attempted to counter, accusing these judges of moving through cases too quickly, but this, too, has been slapped down in court.
“Since November 2025, the courts of this District have thought of little else,” Judge Michael Davis said in a ruling from Sunday. “It is a grave error to confuse efficiency with lack of rigor.”
Davis, a Bill Clinton appointee, also ruled in the case of a Burmese woman, who was admitted as a refugee in 2024 before being taken to a Texas detention facility after being arrested on Jan. 10. Politico reported that she is a mother of three, including a five-month-old with a heart condition.
“There is simply no legal reason for keeping this mother 1800 miles away from her children,” Davis said. “While the Court recognizes that many families are suffering due to… ICE actions in the District of Minnesota, there is something particularly craven about transferring a nursing refugee mother out-of-state.”