'Oh my God': Legal experts stunned after judge catches ICE lawyers citing bogus cases

Attorneys and legal observers were left in disbelief after a federal judge in Minnesota tore into the legal team for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday for submitting a brief "riddled with misreadings and misquotations," and said she questioned defense counsel at the hearing and "received unsatisfactory responses."

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel issued a scathing 69-page preliminary injunction against ICE's detention practices at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minnesota, ordering the agency to restore detainees' access to attorneys, phone calls, and legal materials.

The ruling delivered a sharp rebuke to the government's lawyers.

In contesting the injunction, ICE's legal team twice cited Planned Parenthood v. Rounds for the propositions that mandatory injunctions are "particularly disfavored" and that plaintiffs must meet a "heavy and compelling weight of evidence" standard.

Neither quote appears in that case, nor in any Eighth Circuit case the judge could find.

"Neither of these quotes appear in Planned Parenthood, nor in any Eighth Circuit case the Court has found that addresses injunctions," Brasel wrote flatly. "Even under the most charitable of readings, Planned Parenthood cannot possibly stand for such a proposition; the case discusses the heightened burden that applies to enjoining state statutes and does not involve mandatory injunctions at all."

"The Eighth Circuit does not apply—and has specifically rejected—a heightened standard for mandatory injunctions," the judge wrote.

The nonexistent citations came in a case where the judge had already found ICE's sole witness not credible, calling the witness's testimony "inconsistent at best and incredible at worst." To boot, the agency was found to have violated detainees' Fifth Amendment rights by blocking access to attorneys during Operation Metro Surge.

The blistering takedown astounded legal experts.

Appellate attorney Gabriel Malor‪ wrote on Bluesky, "Oh my God."

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick‪, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on Bluesky, "The collapse of the DOJ continues; suggestions that they used ChatGPT or another LLM to research/write a legal brief in a case involving conditions in ICE confinement at the Whipple building in Minneapolis."

He added: "Also worth reading here: the judge found the ICE witness completely unreliable, finding that her declarations were contradictory and she gave inconsistent answers on the stand, and even says the way she testified made her seem even less credible.

‪Matthew Hoppock, and immigration advocate and litigator, wrote on Bluesky, "It's also just a bad brief. Formatting errors, weird font changes mid-sentence, some case citations are fully italicized and others just the case title is. Some URLs are embedded, some aren't. But I found a few more examples of completely miscited cases."

Attorney ‪Andrew Kinsey‬ wrote on Bluesky,‪" DOJ included fake cites? Holy s--- this is embarrassing. The GOP has absolutely devastated the DOJ."