A federal judge on Friday declined to block the Trump administration from rushing deportations of Somali migrants, despite finding the administration had most likely singled out the community for quicker removal hearings.
An immigration law firm and a nonprofit from Minnesota had sued over the administration’s practices. They argued that the government has prioritized immigration cases involving Somali nationals, demonstrating racial animus toward a small subset of people.
In a 27-page opinion, Judge Carl J. Nichols wrote it was not clear the organizations that sued could prevail in the case because they have not been directly affected by the new policy. He suggested a suit brought on behalf of migrants themselves might be more successful.
“The unrebutted record does suggest some form of coordinated effort directed only at nondetained Somali aliens,” he wrote. “But the effects of that effort are felt most directly by the aliens themselves, who are not parties before the court, and who have their own avenues to challenge removal decisions that violate their constitutional or statutory rights.”
The suit asserted that since January, the government has shuffled immigration court hearings to expedite cases involving Somalis, hampering the ability of lawyers representing them to prepare.
Though just 3,200 of the 3.3 million pending cases in immigration court involve a Somali national, according to data collected by Syracuse University, the lawsuit alleged that the branch of the Justice Department handling immigration cases had taken steps to move those cases ahead of others and process them immediately.
It argued the changes were so widespread that they amounted to a coordinated policy to target Somalis. The firm, Hines Immigration Law, claimed that since January, the government had placed cases involving Somalis on a separate docket, where they are heard by a “small subset” of “handpicked” immigration judges on “a highly accelerated timeline.” The firm said it could not maintain its current caseload under those conditions.
The firm was joined by the Advocates for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provides legal services to people going through immigration proceedings in Minnesota.
The Trump administration has denied that it has adopted any formal policy toward Somalis specifically. It said the groups were suing based on a collection of decisions by immigration judges who independently decided to move Somali cases to the top of their calendars. And it said the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the unit at the Justice Department that runs the immigration courts, had not taken any action to prioritize those cases over others.
During a hearing on Tuesday, Judge Nichols challenged the law firm over its claims that it could not keep up with its caseload, in which 73 of 113 clients are Somali. He suggested the firm could accept fewer clients and allow the Somali migrants to seek other representation as needed.
The groups had noted that the president has repeatedly singled out Somali citizens, often in xenophobic and derogatory terms, and taken several parallel steps to eliminate protections for those temporarily in the United States. They added that the president targeted Minnesota for crushing immigration operations this year, most likely at least in part because of the outsize Somali population there.
While he declined to order the Trump administration to adjust its process, Judge Nichols wrote that he believed it did appear likely that the government was singling out Somalis for a different treatment. He left open the possibility that it could be challenged — either through a different approach or a different lawsuit.
“The government offers no response to plaintiffs’ voluminous declarations or its statistical analysis suggesting that something has caused nondetained Somali immigration proceedings, and only nondetained Somali immigration proceedings, to suddenly accelerate in recent months,” he wrote. “The court thus credits plaintiffs’ allegations that some shift caused this trend.”
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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