The number of habeas corpus cases filed in Minnesota is ramping back up again, reflecting both renewed ICE enforcement activity and increasingly lenient judges.
Since March 25, when the federal 8th Circuit court of appeals ruled that “shall be detained” meant exactly that in relation to illegal aliens, some 222 new habeas cases have been filed in the federal district of Minnesota. These habeas corpus petitions seek the release of illegal aliens held in ICE detention.
The 222 newest cases represent just a part of the more than 1,300 habeas cases filed in Minnesota so far in 2026. January and February saw an explosion of filings tracking Operation Metro Surge. Filings dropped off in March as the Surge wound down.
The Associated Press (AP) reported last week,
ICE arrests 10,000 in 5 days, a sharp late-June surge in Trump’s deportation push
Those are national numbers, but the late-June surge can be seen in Minnesota habeas filings, fueled in part by a big workplace raid in Bemidji, which I wrote about here.
That raid, on a residential roofing jobsite, generated eleven (11) habeas filings last month. Since the 11 cases were scattered among six federal judges, I think it will prove a good case study in the habeas phenomenon. So far, three aliens have been released with the other 8 cases still pending. One judge appears to have declared the concept of workplace raids to be illegal.
Since the March 25 8th Circuit ruling, here are the statistics on habeas rulings in the Minnesota district,
Since March 25, more than twice as many aliens have been released outright (47) as have had their petitions denied outright (23). When I last looked a month ago, the ratio was closer to even (20-16). As more time passes since the 8th Circuit ruling without consequences, some federal judges are feeling more bold in their open defiance of the law.
Another 26 aliens were ordered to receive an immigration court hearing, which does not guarantee their release, but gives them another bite at the apple. In 25 cases the petitions were dismissed, but it is difficult to determine a winner either way. Four other cases were transferred to other federal districts. That leaves almost 100 cases still pending. Of those, fourteen have been pending more than 60 days, with another two pending more than 90 days. Although none of these aliens have been deported, all pending cases remain in ICE custody. As the process drags on, it has to feel more and more like defeat.
An update on a particularly ridiculous case: I reported back in May on Richard Rodriguez Soriano (File No. 26-cv-2451), an illegal alien who had already been deported back to Nicaragua. His lawyer was insisting on continuing with his habeas case in his absence, and without any contact with her client. In the end, the judge denied the habeas petition, ruling that ICE had done nothing wrong in the original apprehension of Rodriquez.
In contrast, in nearly all of the 47 cases of released aliens, the judge has ruled that ICE had committed some sort of technical violation of intra-agency protocol in the initial apprehension of the alien.
I can’t explain the rationale behind the releases any better because the judges themselves are unable to explain their reasoning. The rulings appear to hinge on a requirement (only applying in the cases of illegal aliens) that effects must precede causes.
Think of it this way, as an analogy, it is as if the judges are requiring the police to have already obtained an unanimous jury trial verdict of guilty before they can even begin an investigation. In another analogy, they must present Document B before presenting Document A, when the data for Document A has not yet been gathered.
I understand that, in some forms of theoretical physics, effects can perhaps precede causes. But no judge releasing aliens has explained to ICE or to the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) how this can be accomplished in the Newtonian world that we all operate within. Rather, they simply insist that ICE is doing it wrong.
In a couple of the 222 cases, judges allege that the government has filed documents late, in one instance by ten minutes. In those cases, the judges automatically released the aliens without further proceedings.
Keep in mind, that alien petitioners and their attorneys routinely (by which I mean frequently, often) include false information in their filings and omit crucial details. As an example of falsehoods, on at least two occasions, petitioners lied about the day, the city, and the law enforcement agency who arrested them. Basic stuff.
By omissions, petitions frequently omit the criminal record of the alien detainees, up to and including the violent felony convictions which form the basis for the deportation proceedings.
Keep in mind that habeas petitions are supposed to be filed under oath, under penalty of perjury (the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, etc.). I have not seen a single instance of where falsehoods or material omissions have resulted in sanctions or negative consequences.
Keep in mind that these are civil matters, where the burden of proof is on the alien detainee. Instead, most Minnesota federal district judges treat the initial filings as a jumping-off point for conducting Star Chamber-like persecutions of ICE and the DOJ. It’s insanity.
It’s also a ticking timebomb. At some point, a released alien will go on to commit some new horrific crime, which everyone will understand should have been avoidable.
Consider the case of Vu Vuong Ly, of Vietnam. Back in February, KROC-AM Radio (Rochester, MN) reported,
The execution of a search warrant at a northwest Rochester home led to the seizure of a large amount of cocaine last week.
From KROC,
The charges say officers observed 46-year-old Vu Vuong Ly of Rochester conducting drug sales out of the northwest Rochester home from mid-October through last week.
Court records for Ly show a previous felony drug conviction and a previous conviction for being an accessory to murder.
Nonetheless, federal judge Laura Provinzino ordered Ly’s release because reasons. (File No. 26-cv-2947).
I must say though, that the court filings can, occasionally, make for entertaining reading. One poor soul had been separated from his syphilis medication upon detention.
I hope that got sorted out.
[Note: an earlier version of this post appeared at AmericanExperiment.Org.]
