The Department of Homeland Security unloaded on “activist” judges it accused of playing politics with the legal system and said federal authorities will continue to arrest illegal immigrants across Minnesota despite a growing trend across the state of judges releasing those who have filed habeas cases.
“It should come as no surprise that more habeas petitions are being filed by illegal aliens — especially after many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people’s mandate for mass deportations,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an email Friday.
As of this week, federal law enforcement officers have arrested more than 4,000 illegal immigrants during Operation Metro Surge across Minnesota.
However, those in detention are filing habeas cases outside of immigration court. Although immigration courts are intended to decide immigration cases, the habeas cases are being filed outside, where more sympathetic judges are ruling that the federal government cannot detain people indefinitely.
As the Washington Examiner reported this week, immigration advocacy groups have so far been able to make the Trump administration appear as if it is losing the legal battle over its mandatory detention policies by following rinse-and-repeat patterns in district courts.
In Minnesota, groups such as the American Immigration Council or the American Immigration Lawyers Association file a habeas petition to a federal judge, who more often than not grants temporary release to the detained immigration enforcement target.
More than 300 district judges in Minnesota and elsewhere have so far rejected the government’s mandatory detention policies, ordering detainees released or granted bond hearings. That has fueled a surge of copycat filings nationwide. All the while, appeals courts have yet to address whether the administration’s interpretation of the INA comports with the law.
In Minnesota, the habeas approach seems to be working for plaintiffs. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, an appointee of President Donald Trump, disclosed in a declaration submitted to an appeals court that 427 immigration-related habeas cases were filed in the District of Minnesota in January. That pace is expected to continue in February despite plans by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and federal agencies to draw down 700 of the roughly 3,000 immigration officers present in the state.
McLaughlin said the Trump administration “is more than prepared to handle the legal caseload necessary” to carry out President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.
“President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem are now enforcing the law and arresting illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country,” McLaughlin said. “If an immigration judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”
DHS OFFICIALS POINT FINGERS OVER DELAYS IN BORDER WALL CONSTRUCTION
Rosen, a Justice Department attorney, was far less optimistic.
“To respond to this wave of habeas petitions, this Office has been forced to shift its already limited resources from other pressing and important priorities,” Rosen wrote in the declaration. “The MN-USAO has canceled all [affirmative civil enforcement] work and any other affirmative priorities … and is operating in a reactive mode.”
Kaelan Deese contributed to this report.