A widely covered Minnesota court hearing in which a federal prosecutor told a judge that “this job is useless” also found that “hundreds” of people brought in for immigration proceedings during Operation Metro Surge have a legal right to stay in the United States.
U.S. District Court Judge Jerry W. Blackwell said the “vast majority” of people brought before his court by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since the Trump administration’s crackdown began are “lawfully present.”
It supports a growing number of witness accounts and victim testimony that federal operations have expanded beyond the intended scope of targeting illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories, refugees, legal permanent residents, and even U.S. citizens caught up in the crackdown.
“Many of the hundreds that this court has seen have been found to be lawfully present,” Blackwell said during the Feb. 3 hearing in St. Paul. “They stay in their communities. Some are separated from their families.”
There are innumerable instances of violations of orders for the release of detainees
The reason for Tuesday’s hearing was “court order compliance,” with Blackwell seeking answers from the federal government as to why legal citizens are being detained when they “should have been left alone” and “shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place.”
Blackwell said the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and ICE “are not above the law,” adding: “They exercise extraordinary power, and that power must exist within constitutional limits.”
The issue at hand during the hearing was the “detention of large numbers of people, including those lawfully present in the United States,” and that the DOJ had, in some cases, failed to fulfill its obligation to order releases from detention, and thus violated their constitutional rights.
During the hearing, federal prosecutor Julie T. She lamented the way immigration issues were being handled, saying: “What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks. And I’m trying. [with] Every breath I have so I can get you what you need,” is like “pulling teeth” to bring federal agencies into compliance.
“I’m just trying to make sure the agency understands how important it is to comply with all court orders, which they haven’t done in the past or currently,” she said.
But Blackwell responded: “Feeling that you have too many detainees, too many cases, too many deadlines, and not enough infrastructure to keep up with it all is not a defense to continued detention. If anything, it should be a warning sign.”
Blackwell said he has received more than a half-dozen emails asking for the date, time, and location of an order to release someone, only to find the individuals detained against their rights.
Blackwell was addressing Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna H. Voss for the District of Minnesota and Lay, who worked as an ICE attorney for DHS in immigration court before “stupidly” volunteering in Minnesota.
“I’ve got to be honest, we don’t have any guidance or direction as to what we should do,” Ley told Blackwell. “And then when you show up, they throw you down the well, and then here we go.”
Le said she was receiving orders to release detainees through her DOJ email, which she claimed she was having trouble accessing.
“So are you telling the court that you were brought into this role brand new, on a shiny, brand new penny, and you received no proper orientation or training as to what you were supposed to do?” Blackwell said.
“I would have to say yes to that question, your honor,” replied Lee.
ICE violated the release order for nearly two weeks
Blackwell presented an example where a man was arrested by ICE on Jan. 10, a man Blackwell called a “mandatory detention warrant” with no criminal history, and thus ordered to be released on Jan. 15.
Although the order mandated her release within 48 hours, Ley claimed she was not seen until January 17. The judge again ordered the man’s release on January 19, sending him to a detention center in Texas.
The man was then scheduled to be flown from El Paso, Texas, to Minneapolis on January 20 for release, but he was transferred to a detention center in New Mexico, and he did not return to Minnesota for release until January 24.
“And nine days have passed since this person was ordered released and was unlawfully detained in the first place,” Blackwell said.
In the end, the man was not released until January 28 – a full 13 days after Blackwell ordered his release.
Blackwell said he asked Le several times for an explanation about why the man’s flight from New Mexico to Minnesota was delayed due to alleged “security concerns,” but Le allegedly never responded.
According to the transcript, Le said “we were told that if we provided all the information, protesters would show up at the airport, and the agent and other people would be in danger.” Le did not say who instructed him not to respond.
“So I took it to heart,” Ley explained, “because at the time, it was so hot here in Minnesota with all the protests. Anything public that was going on was at risk. I’m also at risk to put my name and my name here, Your Honor. That’s my safety concern.”
Notably, January 24, the day the man was to be returned to Minnesota and released, was the day CBP agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretty in south Minneapolis.
The judge replied to Le: “What we really want is just compliance, because on the other side of that is somebody who in some cases shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place, who is being held in jail or on the bone for days, if not more than a week, after being ordered to release them.
Blackwell noted that he has learned of situations where someone ordered released “is put on the street with the clothes on their back and have to figure out how to get back here when they shouldn’t have been arrested here, let alone flown halfway across North America.”
DHS officials touted more than 4,000,000 arrests under Operation Metro Surge, but the department has not provided concrete data to substantiate the claim, nor whether that number reflects the number of legally present residents cited repeatedly by Blackwell.
Department of Homeland Security
(Department of Homeland Security)
This story was originally published by Bring Me The News on February 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the MN News section. Click here to add me to fetch news as a favorite source.
