Court Rebukes Trump Administration For Denying Immigration Detainees Access To Lawyers

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Trump administration has been violating the rights of people detained by ICE in Minnesota, saying the agency had stashed them in an ill-equipped, overcrowded facility without access to attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel said it appeared the Trump administration had surged law enforcement into the Twin Cities without accounting for “the constitutional rights of its civil detainees" held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The government suggests—with minimal explanation and even less evidence—that doing so would result in ‘chaos,’” Brasel, a Trump appointee, wrote. “The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.”

The judge ordered the administration to dramatically revamp conditions in the Bishop Henry Whipple federal building, and provide routine and unmonitored phone access to detainees, including the chance to alert attorneys and family members at least one hour before being transferred out of state.

The ruling came just hours after the White House announced an end to its recent immigration crackdown, which saw as many as 3,000 federal agents flood the Minneapolis region to conduct mass deportation operations.

Brasel repeatedly noted that prior to launching Operation Metro Surge, immigration officials had allowed attorneys to meet in person with detainees at the Whipple Building, on the grounds of Fort Snelling, southeast of Minneapolis. Such visits were discontinued once the operation began, the judge said.

Brasel challenged the notion that the government has enough personnel to surge federal agents into the area but lacked the resources to let detainees consult with attorneys.

“Defendants allocated substantial resources to sending thousands of agents to Minnesota, detaining thousands of people, and housing them in their facilities. Defendants cannot suddenly lack resources when it comes to protecting detainees’ constitutional rights,” Brasel wrote.

“In similar fashion, Defendants’ eleventh-hour declaration claims that ‘[a]ny change to current operating procedures would require significant resources that Whipple does not have and is not required to have based on ICE Policy,’” the judge said. “But the United States Constitution—not Whipple’s operational capacity or internal ICE policies—is what sets the floor for reasonable access to counsel.”

It’s the latest and perhaps most pointed rebuke yet from Minnesota federal judges who have called out the administration for violating court orders by illegally transferring detainees out of state, ignoring release orders and missing numerous legal deadlines.

In a related development Thursday, the Justice Department moved to drop the criminal cases against two men charged in connection with a Jan. 14 incident in Minneapolis that led to an ICE officer shooting a man in the leg.

Prosecutors asked a federal court to dismiss charges of assaulting or impeding a federal officer filed against Alfredo Aljorna and Julio Sosa Celis. An FBI agent previously told the court that the men took part in a melee in which ICE officers were struck with a shovel and broom handle, leading to one firing a shot that struck Sosa.

But, in a one-page filing Thursday evening, the government backed away from that story.

"Newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations in the Complaint Affidavit," prosecutors said, asking a federal judge to dismiss the charges with prejudice, meaning they could not be refiled.

The abrupt about-face followed an aggressive effort by prosecutors to keep the two men locked up — even after a federal judge ordered their release — as well as target other witnesses to the incident for deportation. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson, who ordered the release of Aljorna and Sosa from criminal detention, subsequently ordered ICE not to deport any witnesses before they could testify in the matter.

After ICE detained the two men — despite their release from criminal custody — Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz ordered their release once again.

And the 19-year-old partner of one of the two men was similarly ordered released from ICE custody — but not before she was abruptly transferred from Minnesota to El Paso to New Mexico. A judge there, Margaret Strickland, ordered the woman’s release on an emergency basis after learning that her one-year-old son had been severely burned and was slated for emergency surgery in Minnesota.