Rapid transfers. Blocked phone calls. A federal judge says detainees’ constitutional rights were pushed to the brink.
A federal judge in Minnesota has ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to guarantee detainees meaningful access to their attorneys, finding that the agency’s recent enforcement surge effectively cut thousands of people off from legal counsel.
In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel concluded that ICE’s actions during “Operation Metro Surge” — including rapidly transferring detainees out of state and limiting phone access — “all but extinguish a detainee’s access to counsel.” Brasel, appointed during the first term of Donald Trump, issued a temporary order requiring the government to halt the rapid transfers and ensure private attorney-client visits and phone calls. The directive will remain in effect for 14 days as the case proceeds.
The lawsuit, filed in late January by the nonprofit Democracy Forward on behalf of a class of noncitizen detainees, alleges that ICE held individuals in conditions that obstructed legal representation. According to the ruling, many detainees were initially processed at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis before being transferred without notice, sometimes so quickly and frequently that even ICE lost track of their whereabouts.
Brasel wrote that while ICE does not formally deny detainees the right to counsel, its operational decisions isolated thousands from their lawyers in practice. She rejected the agency’s argument that limited resources hindered compliance, noting that ICE had mobilized substantial personnel and logistics to carry out the enforcement operation.
“Defendants allocated substantial resources to sending thousands of agents to Minnesota, detaining thousands of people and housing them in their facilities,” the judge wrote. “Defendants cannot suddenly lack resources when it comes to protecting detainees’ constitutional rights.”
ICE did not dispute that detainees are entitled to legal representation but denied maintaining any policy to block access. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Advocates argue the ruling underscores a basic constitutional principle: access to counsel is not discretionary. Whether the order leads to broader changes in ICE’s detention practices could hinge on how the case unfolds in the weeks ahead.
