Judge Criticizes ICE for Violating Legal Rights, Enforces New Conditions on Detention Centers

This week, a federal judge delivered a sharp rebuke to the Trump administration regarding the “inhumane” and “unconstitutional” conditions found in a federal facility in Minnesota.

In a detailed 69-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel, appointed by Trump in his initial term, provided a pointed critique of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), emphasizing the importance of understanding constitutional rights.

Judge Brasel underscored that “The Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause is applicable to everyone within the United States, including noncitizens, regardless of their legal status or duration of stay,” referencing established legal precedents. She noted, “The Fifth Amendment assures aliens the right to due process in deportation proceedings, and access to legal counsel is crucial to this right; without it, other rights are rendered meaningless.”

The Advocates for Human Rights, a nonprofit based in Minneapolis, initiated the legal action in late January. They accuse the government of multiple breaches involving the First and Fifth Amendments, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) during immigration enforcement operations dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.”

In February, when addressing a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO), Judge Brasel found the evidence overwhelmingly supported the detainees’ claims over the government’s stance in Minnesota.

Now, despite some positive changes for detainees, not enough has been done by the government to rectify past abuses, the judge found.

“Defendants have made improvements, but Defendants’ past violations were not minor infringements incidental to confinement,” the order goes on. “They devastated detainees’ right to due process—a right upon which all others rest. The Court reiterates its prior concern: It appears that in planning for Operation Metro Surge, the government failed to plan for the constitutional rights of its civil detainees. At this preliminary stage, Plaintiffs have made a clear showing of likelihood of success on their Fifth Amendment claim.”

The judge also takes the opportunity to cast doubt on why, exactly, the Trump administration has made any progress at all.

From the order, at length:

Plaintiffs have shown a cognizable danger of recurrent Fifth Amendment violations. And the Court cannot discern the motive behind Defendants’ compliance efforts. It is unclear whether Defendants have updated their practices because of (1) the Court’s TRO; (2) the drawdown of ICE officers; or (3) a genuine belief that Defendants’ practices should comply with the Constitution. Defendants do not represent that they would have implemented changes without judicial intervention. Prior to the Court’s TRO, Defendants asserted that they were honoring detainees’ Fifth Amendment right, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

“And, as explained in the TRO, the nature of the past violations are grave,” the judge muses.

In the case, attorneys for a class of detainees highlighted a pattern and practice of ICE agents “isolating” what the court termed “thousands of people.” Most of these people were being held at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building without access to attorneys.

Such isolation, the court found, is entirely new – and a direct product of the government’s immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota.

“Whipple has the mechanisms to provide detainees access to counsel,” Brasel explains. “Before Operation Metro Surge, agents at Whipple worked with attorneys and detainees to facilitate attorney-client communication. Defendants maintain that Whipple continues to respect and facilitate detainees’ access to counsel. But this assertion is belied entirely by the record now before the Court.”

The judge has now transformed the original TRO in the case – which originally had a limited duration and was once extended – into a preliminary injunction, which will remain in effect unless the court changes its mind or it is stayed by an appellate court.

The judge also certified the case as a class action that covers “noncitizens taken into custody by Defendants under the Immigration and Nationality Act and detained at the [Enforcement and Removal Operation] Holding Facility at the Whipple Federal Building.”

Additional relief for the plaintiffs includes formalizing a ban on “rapid transfers” out of state. Now, ICE agents are prohibited from moving detainees out of Whipple within 72 hours of their detention.

“Before the TRO, Defendants moved detainees frequently, quickly, and often blindly,” the judge explains. “Attorneys often had no way to know where or how long their client would be detained at a given facility.”

In an earlier opposing brief, the government complained that the judge’s TRO made detainees’ access to telephone calls – within a certain timeline – too onerous on the government. The court replied that the prior order did not actually mandate what the government complained about. But now the new order mandates exactly that.

Now, every person “taken into custody” for immigration violations at Whipple must be provided with a suite of legal aid contacts and materials in five different languages “within one hour of their detention and prior to being transferred out of state.” The court also mandates that ICE provide detainees with an interpreter, if needed.

And, also within one hour of their detention, detainees are to be provided “free, private, and unmonitored access to the telephone.”

Detainees can make additional calls without restriction.

“Defendants shall permit Detainees to make a reasonable number of calls necessary to reach counsel or family,” the order goes on. “Thereafter, Defendants shall provide Detainees with access to confidential telephone calls with their legal representation at no charge to the Detainee.”