A federal judge in Minnesota has blocked immigration officers from arresting and detaining recently resettled refugees in the state, following a lawsuit that accused agents of “hunting” them down and sending them to a detention centre in Texas.
District Judge John Tunheim’s order, issued on Wednesday night, also commands the administration to immediately release any detained refugees and return them to their homes in Minnesota. The ruling notes that the refugees involved have been “carefully and thoroughly vetted” before being accepted into the United States due to persecution in their home countries.
“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully — and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries,” Tunheim wrote. The order remains in effect while he considers a wider injunction.
The Trump administration’s Operation PARRIS, launched earlier this month, targeted Minnesota’s 5,600 new refugees who are legally present but not yet lawful permanent residents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have arrested them at immigration check-ins, on their way to work or school, and at their doorsteps without warrants, according to a class-action lawsuit. Some were shackled and sent to a detention centre in Texas, more than 1,200 miles away.
Lawyers for the refugees argued the operation is fuelled by President Trump’s “animus” towards Somali immigrants, whom he has derided as “garbage” who “come from hell.” The Twin Cities are home to roughly 80,000 people of Somali ancestry, most of whom are legal residents or citizens. A spokesperson for US Citizenship and Immigration Services defended the operation, saying Minnesota is “ground zero for the war on fraud” and that the Trump administration “will not stand idly by as the US immigration system is weaponized.”
