President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security got a huge blow on Thursday evening, as a judge he appointed found a systematic and illegal effort to deprive Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees in Minnesota of access to legal counsel.
In the 41-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel outlined the damning state of affairs, including how attorneys were not allowed to enter the Whipple Building to speak with detainees.
Administration officials tried to argue that because the Whipple Building is a temporary holding facility with limited space, it is neither practical nor required to allow in-person attorney visitation — but Brasel disagreed.
“Putting aside the debate about whether Whipple is, in fact, a holding facility, the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections do not depend on whether the place of detention is called a ‘holding facility’ or a ‘detention center.’ Any conclusion to the contrary belies elementary Fifth Amendment due process jurisprudence,” wrote Brasel, citing a past case that found an ICE detainee in a holding facility likely did have these rights. “Defendants appear to acknowledge the weakness in this argument; they state, repeatedly, that they do provide access to counsel through phone calls.”
As for the claim that the facility doesn’t have the space for counsel meetings, Brasel cited a court ruling last year that “Defendants may not properly choose a facility that is unfit for a particular purpose and then use the inadequacies of the facility as a justification to deprive detainees of meaningful, confidential access to legal counsel to the extent demanded by the Constitution.”
This ruling comes down as Tom Homan, the White House border adviser currently in charge of enhanced operations in Minneapolis, said that the surge of federal agents to that city will be withdrawn after weeks of crackdowns, protests, and controversy.
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