Judge to hear arguments on Minnesota immigration crackdown after fatal shootings
Two people have been killed by US government officers in the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul.
A US federal judge is due to hear arguments on whether she should at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has led to the fatal shootings of two people by government officers.
The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs (Ice) officer.
The shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday by a Border Patrol officer has only added urgency to the case.
Since the original filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their original request.
They are trying to restore the state of affairs that existed before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge on December 1.
The hearing is set for Monday morning in a federal court in Minneapolis. Democratic Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison said he plans to personally attend the hearing.
The state and cities are asking US district judge Kathleen Menendez to order federal law enforcement agencies to reduce the numbers of officers and agents in Minnesota to levels before the surge, while allowing them to continue to enforce immigration laws within a long list of proposed limits.
US justice department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said “Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement”.
They have asked the judge to reject the request or or at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.
Mr Ellison said at a news conference on Sunday that he and the cities filed their lawsuit because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge”.
He added: “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 case also has implications for other US states that have been or could be targets of intensive federal immigration enforcement operations.
Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting 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 attorneys general wrote.
Judge Menendez is the same judge who ruled in a separate case on January 16 that federal officers in Minnesota cannot detain or tear-gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including people who are following and observing agents.
An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday’s shooting.
But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late on Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Mr Pretti’s killing.
The US justice department argued in a reply filed on Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad.
In yet another case, late on Saturday, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting.
Ellison and Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty asked for the order to try to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St Paul.
“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,” Mr Ellison told reporters.
“But now, this is what we have to do.”
