A top official for President Donald Trump announced that the federal government will remain in Minnesota until it receives cooperation. It's a phrase that could have a very serious bearing on ongoing litigation.
Legal reporter Cristian Farias, who has reported at Vanity Fair, New York Magazine and The New Yorker, pointed to comments from Tom Homan, Trump's executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
Reporters asked whether his comments apply only to Minnesota or to other states. The reporter also asked when Homan will decide that it's over.
"The withdrawal of law enforcement resources here is dependent upon cooperation. Like I said, one agent wrestling one bad guy, bad guy in jail, means less agents on the streets. We got more to do — to talk about how we're going to implement this agreement. But as we see that cooperation happens, then the redeployment will happen," Homan said.
The statement is a problem for judges looking into whether the federal agents were sent for political reasons.
"One problem of having people like Tom Homan and other non-lawyers in charge is that they say things that are material to ongoing litigation," said Farias. "All the time. (Pam Bondi, a lawyer, is the exception: She too says things bearing on active litigation all the time)."
"The tone shift is to have Tom Homan recite that the extortionate and coercive demands in [Attorney General] Bondi's letter — turn over your voter rolls, abandon your state policies and give us Medicaid data and we’ll end the occupation and terrorization of a state — are the terms," added Michigan law professor Leah Litman.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine M. Menendez questioned the Justice Department about the purpose of the surge of federal agents and whether it was intended to pressure states and cities to change their policies.
There has been a case about a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) from the agents arresting and detaining lawfully resettled refugees in the state. The judge granted it on Wednesday. The government must also release all refugees, including those who have been shipped out of the state to Texas.
U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said on Wednesday that ICE "violated at least 96 court orders in 74 cases in January, and that is likely a substantial undercount," quoted Fox 9 in Minneapolis.
