Federal Judge Hears Arguments In Minnesota ICE Crackdown Lawsuit

On Monday, a Minnesota federal judge heard arguments from Minnesota officials in their challenge to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown in the state.

According to AP, U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez’s questions showed skepticism toward both Minnesota’s request to halt immigration enforcement in the state and the Trump administration’s tactics in its ongoing crackdown. 

The lawsuit was filed days after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good as she was trying to drive away. Menendez acknowledged that the case has renewed urgency after Alex Pretti was fatally shot on Saturday by another unidentified ICE agent.

Menendez questioned the federal government’s true motive behind the immigration crackdown, focusing on a letter U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, demanding that the state turn over voter rolls, Medicaid, and SNAP records, and end sanctuary policies to “restore the rule of law” in Minnesota. “I mean, is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Menendez asked.

“If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said.

The Trump administration has tried to frame the lawsuit as “legally frivolous” and asked the judge to reject the request. “I don’t see how the fact that we’re also doing additional things that we are allowed to do, that the Constitution has vested us with doing, would in any way negate another piece of the same operation, the same surge,” Brantley Mayers, counsel to the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general, said during the hearing.

Menendez didn’t seem entirely convinced, questioning where the line is drawn between the executive enforcing the law and violating the Constitution. I know no one was asking me, but I think the line is drawn when federal law enforcement tactics explicitly violate the constitutional rights guaranteed to all of us. 

For a party that has made free speech and gun rights a centerpiece of its modern identity, the killing of Alex Pretti while he was lawfully exercising his First and Second Amendment rights has had the GOP bending backward to justify it. ICE’s pattern of entering homes and conducting arrests without warrants is also violating the Fourth Amendment. 

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison defended the necessity of the lawsuit on Sunday due to “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”

The fact that these immigration crackdowns have continued to go on, and ICE has not faced any legal consequences or spurred an attempt at internal accountability within the Department of Homeland Security, is sending the message that the federal government sees the Constitution as merely a suggestion and not the framework on which America’s laws were built. 

Menendez acknowledged that “we are in shockingly unusual times” but seemed unsure of her ability to hamper the federal government’s decision-making when it comes to immigration enforcement. At one point, she questioned if she was being asked to choose between state and federal policy. “That begins to feel very much like I am deciding which policy approach is best,” she said.

Menendez’s decision could affect other states rumored to be targets of future ICE operations. California led a group of attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Minnesota. “If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorney general wrote.

There’s very little faith in the federal government to operate reasonably regarding the shooting of Alex Pretti, as a federal judge issued an order on late Saturday preventing the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Pretti’s shooting. 

“The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago,” Ellison told reporters. “But now, this is what we have to do.”

SEE ALSO:

Trump Administration Blames Alex Pretti For His Own Death

Could The Government Shutdown Over ICE Minneapolis Killing?