The Trump administration‘s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota has led to thousands of illegal immigrants being arrested, but various lawsuits over those detentions have flooded the federal district court in the state.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota handles cases, including habeas corpus cases challenging law enforcement’s reasons for their detention, filed by illegal immigrants swept up in the federal immigration operations in the North Star State. Those challenges have been largely successful despite the federal law that Congress passed to keep district courts out of the removal process.
The legal saga could make its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which oversees the Minnesota federal district court and has already struck down some adverse rulings for Trump over the operation.
Federal district judges have released several arrested illegal immigrants in Minnesota operation
The Trump administration has seen a series of losses in the more than 500 habeas corpus cases filed in the District of Minnesota since Operation Metro Surge began on Dec. 1, 2025. Of those hundreds of cases, judges have only sided with the Trump administration’s argument for the continued detention of arrested illegal immigrants in a handful of cases.
One of the few rulings allowing for continued detention came from U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, an appointee of President Donald Trump who serves in the District of North Dakota and was seemingly brought in to help alleviate the massive backlog of cases. Traynor denied the release of an illegal immigrant from Ecuador from detention, finding that while he had not violated any additional laws aside from being in the country unlawfully, the president has wide flexibility over immigration enforcement.
“It is a sorrowful conclusion to require an otherwise law-abiding man be detained and kept from his family. But the law requires his detention without bond under the circumstances presented in this case. The executive branch must be permitted sufficient flexibility to ensure our nation’s borders are secure and to have enough authority to conduct thorough inspections and removals,” Traynor said in his Wednesday ruling.
Most of the losses in the habeas corpus cases have come via brief orders from federal judges, such as a Wednesday ruling from U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson that set the stage for the release of a Somali illegal immigrant who did not receive lawful permanent residence within a year of arriving in the U.S. in 2024.
Another federal judge’s ruling earlier this week blocked the Trump administration from detaining 5,600 refugees in Minnesota who are awaiting lawful permanent status.
Across the country, pro-immigration lawyers have used habeas corpus petitions to slow Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts. With the increased focus on Minnesota, the number of habeas corpus petitions filed by illegal immigrants in federal court in the North Star State this year has surpassed the total number filed all of last year.
Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, previously told the Washington Examiner that Congress intentionally removed district courts from the deportation process and noted that these habeas petitions complicate that intention.
“District court judges aren’t supposed to have any jurisdiction at all over deportation matters,” Arthur said. “Those are all supposed to go to the circuit courts, and Congress did that deliberately, because they wanted to get district court judges out of immigration determinations entirely.”
“[Congress] did this twice. They did it once in 1996, and then they had a problem with, you know, judges taking these things up on habeas,” Arthur said. “And then they did it again in 2005, in the REAL ID Act of 2005, to say, you also don’t get habeas jurisdiction.”
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that a federal district court overstepped its authority by ordering Mahmoud Khalil’s release from immigration detention, finding that his issues should have been resolved by an immigration court.
“Our holdings vindicate essential principles of habeas and immigration law. The scheme Congress enacted governing immigration proceedings provides Khalil a meaningful forum in which to raise his claims later on—in a petition for review of a final order of removal,” the appeals court ruling said.
The Immigration and Nationality Act requires all reviewable questions regarding the removal of a noncitizen to be handled by an immigration court, and once a final order of removal is issued by the top immigration court, a noncitizen can take his or her challenge to a federal appeals court, not a federal district court.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that “various provisions of the INA limit an alien’s ability to collaterally challenge ongoing immigration proceedings through habeas,” and it issued an order allowing Khalil to be rearrested. While the Third Circuit ruling does not have precedent over the Minnesota district court, which is overseen by the Eighth Circuit, it is a ruling the Trump administration can point to when defending against the habeas petitions, particularly if the Justice Department appeals the challenges.
Federal appeals court above Minnesota could be more favorable to Trump
While the rulings by judges in the Minnesota federal district court have been largely unfavorable toward the Trump administration, the appeals court that oversees the district court could have a more favorable bench for the administration.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit oversees the federal district of Minnesota, along with federal district courts in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, and has a bench of overwhelmingly Republican-appointed judges.
In the Eighth Circuit, there is one judge appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, five by former President George W. Bush, four by Trump, and only one by former President Barack Obama. On the bench in the Minnesota federal district court, there is one George W. Bush appointee, two Trump appointees, and four appointees of former President Joe Biden.
The appeals court has already stepped in to lift a district court’s ruling attempting to place restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics used in Minnesota. The brief ruling from a three-judge panel on the appeals court said the Justice Department had made a “strong showing” that the lower judge’s ruling would not survive appellate review.
Another major case, which could be before the appeals court shortly, deals with a legal challenge to Operation Metro Surge itself. Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration over the operation, alleging it is unlawful, and U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez is expected to rule on the request to halt the operation in the coming days.
MINNESOTA ICE PROTESTERS FACE FEW ARRESTS DESPITE CONTINUED UNREST
Menendez was previously overruled by the Eighth Circuit in the order limiting ICE’s tactics in the North Star State, but appeared skeptical of Minnesota’s request during a Monday hearing.
While court battles continue in Minnesota, tensions between anti-ICE protesters and federal law enforcement remain high and have led to a pair of deadly confrontations between protesters and officers. The high tensions have led to both federal and state officials seeking to de-escalate, with Trump sending his border czar, Tom Homan, to lead discussions toward a potential offramp from the federal surge.