Two men were recently charged with assaulting an immigration officer in MN with a snow shovel and broom, which led to a shooting ICE claims was defensive. The case made national headlines.

The men moved in court earlier in this week to prevent ICE from deporting witnesses who they say can rebut the charges. Their trial judge, Paul Magnuson, agreed.

However...
One of the witnesses, a 19-year-old woman who appears to be the partner of one of the defendants, was apparently picked up by ICE the same day as the incident and transported first to Texas and then to New Mexico.

Today, a judge in New Mexico noted demanded details about the woman's detention, noting that MN offered her a U visa for witnesses to a criminal investigation and that she's being held under mandatory detention policies that most judges – including Judge Strickland – have ruled unlawful.

MEANWHILE: Judges in Minnesota continue rejecting the administration's efforts to lock up ICE's targets en masse. This man has been in the US since 1988 and says he's been approved for a green card.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… What may be most notable, however, is the increasingly lengthy list of requirements in the judge's order — each responsive to recent violations or transgressions by the administation, such as releasing MN residents in Texas with no way to get home to withholding their possessions

NEW: A rupture between DOJ and ICE has emerged in Minnesota, where overwhelmed prosecutors keep dropping the ball — and saying ICE won't return their messages.

The crisis has had real-world consequences for migrants illegally detained.

w/ @joshgerstein

politico.com/news/2026/02/0… MORE: Julie Le — the DOJ attorney who vented about the chaos in court — has been reassigned. politico.com/news/2026/02/0…

!! Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos — who became a symbol of ICE's aggression in MN

"The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas..even if it requires traumatizing children storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Never seen a ruling like this: "Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Judges around the country are eyeing what's happening in Minnesota. In a ruling freeing a detained immigrant here, Judge Goodwin of West Virginia said he couldn't ignore the crises in MN.

"Constitutional rights do not only protect persons when a lawsuit has been filed. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Judge Traynor becomes latest in a vanishingly small -- but steadily growing -- minority of judges to side with the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy. He says it's a "sorrowful conclusion" to remove a law-abiding man from his family.

Notably, Tryanor -- a North Dakota-based Trump appointee -- is apparently handling cases in Minnesota due to the immense backlog of habeas petitions.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

HAPPENING NOW: Minnesota v. Noem hearing is underway before Judge Menendez, who will weigh whether to order an end to Operation Metro Surge. AG Keith Ellison is at counsel table for the state. Lawyer for the state, Lindsey Middlecamp, begins by demanding immediate end to "unlawful and unchecked invasion" by federal agents. She cites the Alex Pretti killing and says things are escalating, not improving.

Since July, I've tracked at least 2,300 cases in which federal judges have ruled ICE has illegally detained people without bond or due process.

This is one that stands out:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Minnesota courts have been inundated with these cases since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge last month. Here's a ruling by Judge Bryan from yesterday, freeing a man who as detained after living in the US for 20 years with no criminal record. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

HAPPENING NOW; Judge Young is picking up where he left off in his remarkable opinion describing an unconstitutional scheme to arrest/deport pro-Palestinian activists in violation of their constitutional rights:

"There was no policy here. What happened here is an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people, to twist the laws."

"Two cabinet secretaries conspired ... they intentionally, knowing what they were doing, counseled by professionals who cautioned them, nevertheless went ahead to pick off these people with the intention that your clients would be chilled. And did so rather effectively, by the way." YOUNG: "The big problem in this case is that the cabinet secretaries and ostensibly the president of the United States are not honoring the First Amendment."

HAPPENING NOW: In federal court in MN, DOJ is struggling to articulate why a person following an ICE vehicle — so long as they are obeying traffic laws — can be stopped for "reasonable suspicion" of a crime.

Judge Menendez sharply questioning that contention. Judge Menendez has not tipped her hand entirely yet but she seems concerned that DOJ provided no firsthand evidence to counter the specific, evidence-backed claims by protesters that they were arrested / seized in retaliation for First Amendment speech.

BREAKING: A day after the Minneapolis shooting, Secretary Noem quietly signed a new policy barring congressional visits to ICE facilities without a week's advance notice.

s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2646…
NEW: ICE's renewed block on unannounced congressional vists comes a month after a judge struck down a similar policy.

But the new version is tailored to sidestep that ruling by relying only on funds from the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."

politico.com/news/2026/01/1…

JUST IN: DOJ says it has finished reviewing *less than 1%* of the Epstein Files for potential release.

Only 12,285 documents have been released while more than 2 million remain under review.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… MORE: DOJ says the batch of 1 million documents it recently unearthed appear to be largely duplicative "but nonetheless still need to undergo a process of processing and deduplication." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

BREAKING: The House Judiciary Committee has released Jack Smith's 255-page deposition transcript: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs… Smith was barred from discussing any nonpublic parts of his classified documents probe by Judge Cannon's order prohibiting DOJ from divulging any nonpublic info about it.

In a late night filing, DOJ says Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be returned to detention because he is subject to laws governing detention during deportation proceedings — and “may seek a bond hearing” before an immigration judge. However … storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… The administration has been arguing in thousands of cases that people in Abrego’s position are not entitled to bond hearings at all — and rather are subject to mandatory detention. Hundreds of judges across the country have ruled that position illegal politico.com/news/2025/11/2…

HAPPENING NOW: Taylor Taranto, a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant who was convicted for bringing weapons to Obama’s neighborhood, has returned to DC and has been roaming Rep. Jamie Raskin’s neighborhood — alarming police.

Today, DOJ asked a judge to immediately re-jail him. Taranto lives in WA state but drove across the country in recent weeks. He has filmed ominous videos from the Pentagon parking lot and was wandering Raskin’s Takoma Park area at 2am. DOJ says it’s nearly identical conduct to what he was charged for in 2023.

HAPPENING NOW: Rahmullah Lakanwal makes his initial appearance in DC Superior Court, from a hospital bed, on charges for last week's National Guard shooting. He's being apprised, through an interpreter, of the murder charge against him as well as charges of possessing of a firearm during commission of a violent offense, assault w intent to kill while armed.

NEW: ICE’s policy of mass detaining immigrants w pending deportation proceedings has led to an avalanche of rejections in court.

More than 220 judges — including 23 Trump appointees — have called it an illegal distortion of long-settled law. politico.com/news/2025/11/2… Those judges have ruled against the administration more than 700 times since ICE implemented its draconian new policy on July 8.

Only 8 judges have side with ICE’s position. politico.com/news/2025/11/2…

BREAKING: Comey case dismissed without prejudice. Halligan invalidly appointed, judge rules. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… This applies to the Letitia James indictment as well. Both cases are now dismissed without prejudice. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

JUST IN: A federal judge says one of the Venezuelan men — illegally deported to El Salvador in March before he was swapped back to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange — is now missing, possibly a victim of the violence he was seeking asylum from.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee in MD, says the administration flagrantly and repeatedly defied her orders to provide regular updates about the man’s return. But she stops short of finding contempt bc it was Rubio, who isn’t named in the lawsuit, who was responsible for communicating w El Salvador

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

BREAKING: Prosecutors in the Comey case just told the judge that they’re under orders from the Deputy Attorney Generals’s office not to disclose whether career prosecutors wrote a memo recommending *against* indicting Comey prior to Halligan going to the grand jury. AUSA Tyler Lemons told Judge Nachmanoff that he hasn’t gotten permission to disclose what could be considered “privileged” or “work product” material. He did say he asked to review and possible declination memo and has seen “drafts.”

BREAKING: A panel of federal judges has enjoined Texas from using its redrawn congressional maps , ordering the state to use its 2021 boundaries. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… NEWS: A panel of Texas judges, led by a Trump appointee, concluded that Texas' mega-redistricting push was likely an illegal racial gerrymander and must be blocked from taking effect.

w/ @andrewjfhoward @joshgerstein

politico.com/news/2025/11/1…

BREAKING: Magistrate orders DOJ to turn over grand jury materials to Comey, finding real prospect that "government misconduct" may have tainted the case. MORE: The magistrate said an FBI agent who may have viewed Comey's privileged materials was nevertheless permitted to present evidence to the grand jury — a "highly irregular" decision and "radical departure" for DOJ. He was the only witness at the GJ. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…