A US federal judge issued a “temporary restraining order” on Wednesday to prevent the Trump administration from arresting lawfully resettled refugees in Minnesota and ordered those detained to be released.
US district judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents likely violated multiple federal statutes by arresting lawful refugees and subjecting them to additional interrogations.
“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully – and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries,” Tunheim wrote.
“At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty,” Tunheim added. “We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”
The ruling took particular aim at the Trump administration’s “Operation Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening” or “Operation PARRIS”, a programme announced by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month that was set to reexamine “thousands” of refugee cases through new background checks.
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Judge Tunheim’s order called for any refugees detained under the operation to be “immediately released from custody”.
Tunheim, however, said that the Trump administration could continue to enforce immigration laws and review refugees’ status, so long as it does not arrest and detain them.
The order drew a quick rebuke from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a powerful figure who is the mastermind behind Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending,” Miller wrote on X.
Protections for refugees
Refugees awaiting their permanent resident status “have undergone rigorous background checks and vetting, been approved by multiple federal agencies for entry, been given permission to work, received support from the government, and been resettled in the United States,” Tunheim wrote.
“These individuals were admitted to the country, have followed the rules, and are waiting to have their status adjusted to lawful permanent residents of the United States.”
As has been the case with ICE arrests across the US, the crackdown in Minnesota has often been violent, and immigrants and refugees have been dragged out of their homes and cars and put into a local detention facility before being shipped off to a site in Texas, where conservative judges are more likely to be in line with Trump administration policies.
“Two weeks ago, armed ICE agents began imprisoning refugees who fled persecution, came here lawfully, and built a life in Minnesota,” Sarah Kahn, senior staff attorney at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, said in a press release from the International Refugee Assistance Project.
“Through this order, the judge recognized that this brutal and senseless practice is illegal and required that the government respect longstanding protections for refugees.”
Minnesota has emerged as the focal point of Trump’s crackdown. Two US citizens have been killed in the state by ICE agents as they were observing and documenting the agency’s activities.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
