Federal judge declines Minnesota’s request to halt Trump’s immigration sweep

A federal judge on Saturday denied Minnesota’s request to halt the federal government’s immigration “surge” as the lawsuit proceeds.

Judge Katherine Menendez, a Biden appointee, ruled that Minnesota and the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis did not sufficiently prove that the federal government’s Operation Metro Surge, which has killed two people and sparked daily protests, was unlawful.

“Plaintiffs have provided no metric by which to determine when lawful law enforcement becomes unlawful commandeering, simply arguing that the excesses of Operation Metro Surge are so extreme that the surge exceeds whatever line must exist,” Menendez wrote in her order, declining to issue a preliminary injunction.

Still, she acknowledged that the operation “has had, and will likely continue to have, profound and even heartbreaking, consequences.”

“It would be difficult to overstate the effect this operation is having on the citizens of Minnesota, and the Court must acknowledge that reality here,” Menendez wrote.

Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the ruling in a post on X. “Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,” she wrote.

The Trump administration deployed thousands of federal law enforcement officers to the state in December. Officers have shot three people, two of them fatally, in the past month. State and local officials have repeatedly said that federal agents are causing chaos on the streets and endangering residents. Minnesotans have described a climate of fear and anger in their neighborhoods.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement that he is “disappointed” by the ruling Saturday.

“This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place,” he said. “This operation has not brought public safety. It’s brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It’s an invasion, and it needs to stop.”