The top lawyer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota left the agency in recent days, exiting as a crush of litigation stemming from the immigration crackdown in the state has overwhelmed the court system.
The lawyer, Jim Stolley, the outgoing chief counsel for ICE in the state, has not publicly addressed the circumstances of his departure. Starting this week, emails sent to his government account generated an automated response noting that he had “retired from public service.”
Mr. Stolley, a veteran of the agency, did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed on Saturday that Mr. Stolley had retired this week. He had worked for the immigration agency for 31 years, she said.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which began in December, has generated an enormous amount of litigation in both immigration courts and in the main federal court system. Hundreds of immigrants are fighting deportation orders as well as the circumstances of their detention.
Government lawyers have failed to respond in a timely manner to the pile of lawsuits and court orders stemming from the mass roundup of immigrants.
The top federal judge in Minnesota, Patrick J. Schiltz, recently criticized ICE for violating more than 100 judicial orders. Those orders include several rulings demanding that the government release people from custody.
“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” Judge Schiltz wrote in a ruling late last month.
Mr. Stolley’s exit comes days after a lawyer employed by ICE, who was on loan to the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, told a judge that the number of lawsuits filed by recently detained immigrants had become unmanageable.
“Fixing a system, a broken system, I don’t have a magic button to do it,” the lawyer, Julie T. Le, told a federal judge who had expressed frustration over the government’s failure to abide by court orders related to immigrants seeking to be released from custody.
Ms. Le at one point told the judge in exasperation: “The system sucks. This job sucks.” She sardonically suggested that he hold her in contempt so she could finally get some sleep.
After her remarks, Ms. Le’s temporary post at the U.S. attorney’s office was ended, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Stolley, the outgoing chief counsel, oversaw a team of government lawyers who appear before immigration judges in Minnesota. Immigration judges decide whether people subject to deportation have a path to obtaining legal status.
The immigration court system has long been hampered by a severe backlog, which often leaves immigrants seeking asylum or other forms of legal status in limbo for years. As of mid-2025, the immigration court system had 3.8 million pending deportation cases, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The recent surge of immigration agents in Minnesota has plunged the federal court system into chaos as hundreds of immigrants have filed lawsuits claiming that they were improperly detained.
Daniel N. Rosen, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, recently submitted a declaration as part of one of those lawsuits, saying his office was struggling to cope with a “flood” of immigration cases.
In January alone, he wrote, more than 427 immigration lawsuits were filed, forcing the office to put aside much of its conventional work. The office’s civil division, which handles those types of cases, is understaffed by roughly 50 percent, Mr. Rosen said.
“Paralegals are continuously working overtime,” he wrote. “Lawyers are continuously working overtime.”
Immigration lawyers said they were surprised by Mr. Stolley’s abrupt departure at a time when the court system is buckling.
“It is never a good sign when experienced lawyers who have weathered several different presidential administrations decide to leave,” said Linus Chan, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in immigration matters.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.
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