A judge on Saturday declined to order the Trump administration to immediately scale back its immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, rejecting pleas from state officials who said the campaign was stepping on their sovereignty and endangering the public.
Minnesota and the Twin Cities had not definitively shown that the administration’s decision to flood the state with agents was unlawful or designed to force local officials into cooperating with the administration’s objectives, U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez said in her ruling.
Although she acknowledged evidence that immigration agents had engaged in acts of racial profiling, excessive use of force and other disruptions in nearly all aspects of Minnesotans’ lives, she stressed she was not tasked with ruling on any of those claims. Menendez said the Trump administration had also presented plausible arguments for the need for its enforcement operation, dubbed Operation Metro Surge.
“The Court is particularly reluctant to take a side in the debate about the purpose behind Operation Metro Surge,” she wrote. “Not only is it difficult to identify a single motivation for a significant multifaceted operation, but doing so would venture into a uniquely controversial political question.”
Although the judge did not grant a preliminary injunction to end the immigration crackdown, she noted in her 30-page opinion that she was not making a final determination on the state’s claims until the lawsuit is heard fully.
Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling in a post to X.
“Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,” she wrote.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said city leaders were disappointed in the decision, but he vowed in a statement to continue fighting the case. “This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place,” he said. “This operation has not brought public safety. It’s brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It’s an invasion, and it needs to stop.”
The Trump administration’s decision to deploy roughly 3,000 federal officers to Minnesota has sparked sustained protests and an intensive effort among residents to track and document the enforcement. Federal authorities have shot and killed two people in Minneapolis since this surge began, prompting widespread outrage in Minnesota and across the country.
Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration on Jan. 12 in response to the surge, saying that federal agents had “stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids and carry out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests.” In court papers and in hearings, they have described the situation in and around Minneapolis as dire.
After an ICE officer shot and killed Renée Good on Jan. 7, Minneapolis launched its emergency preparedness protocols, leading to “significant additional work” for police and others in the city, Minnesota officials wrote in a court filing. Federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, on Jan. 24. In a letter to the court the same day, Minneapolis and Minnesota officials said Pretti’s killing further illustrated the need for “a court-ordered respite” to the ongoing situation.
Local authorities have accused the Trump administration of launching the immigration crackdown “to punish political opponents and score partisan points.” They have also said the federal operation has disrupted Minnesotans’ access to education, government services and health care.
The Trump administration has maintained that Minnesota officials were “effectively seeking a state veto over the enforcement of federal law by federal officers” and the courts do not have the authority to second-guess the president’s law enforcement priorities.
Federal officials wrote in court papers that the immigration crackdown has been a success despite attacks and threats against federal personnel. President Donald Trump campaigned on enforcing immigration laws, the Justice Department wrote, and “Minnesota is a crucial priority for immigration enforcement.”
During a court hearing Monday, Menendez said that while “we are in shockingly unusual times,” she was skeptical about whether her authority allowed her to decide if the immigration agents could remain deployed in Minnesota. She reiterated that hesitation in her ruling Saturday, noting the law around many of Minnesota’s claims was not so “clear cut” and required further examination from the courts.
Menendez concluded that there could be legitimate reasons for the surge, including the administration’s stated goals of cracking down on fraud and undocumented residents in the state.
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