ICE chief counsel in Minnesota leaves his job amid burnout and dissent

Amid a torrent of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration tactics, the chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota has departed.

The top lawyer, Jim Stolley, retired after 31 years of service, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to MS NOW in an email. Questions from MS NOW sent to Stolley’s Department of Homeland Security email address prompted an automated one-line response that read: “I have retired from public service.”

Stolley’s departure, reported first on Saturday by The New York Times, comes as ICE continues to draw the ire of judges for failing to comply with court orders. Federal officials are also battling an immense caseload, with prosecutors resigning — or being fired for speaking out.

Julie Le, according to NBC News, was removed from her temporary post at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota after she told a judge “this job sucks” when grilled about why the government was not heeding court orders to release unlawfully detained immigrants.

“I wish you could hold me in contempt so that I could get 24 hours of sleep,” Le said.

The Justice Department has seen a slew of resignations over its handling of DHS officers’ killing of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in separate incidents during the so-called Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.

MS NOW reported that top officials from the DOJ’s civil rights division quit in January after the department declined to investigate Good’s fatal shooting. The New York Times reported in January that six federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota resigned after the DOJ officials sought an investigation into Good’s widow, Becca Good.

The Justice Department announced in late January that it would open a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s killing after initially refusing to do so.

In a statement released Saturday, Becca Good thanked her fellow Minneapolis residents for their support in the wake of her partner and Pretti’s deaths.

“Renee was not the first person killed, and she was not the last. You know my wife’s name and you know Alex’s name, but there are many others in this city being harmed that you don’t know — their families are hurting just like mine, even if they don’t look like mine,” she said. “They are neighbors, friends, coworkers, classmates. And we must also know their names. Because this shouldn’t happen to anyone.”