Two federal courts delivered significant setbacks to President Donald Trump’s stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts on the same day, issuing rulings in Oregon and Minnesota that sharply curtailed how federal agents can carry out arrests.
In both cases, U.S. district judges concluded that immigration authorities had crossed legal boundaries. Their orders immediately blocked certain enforcement tactics within their respective states and required federal officials to change how they detain individuals in civil immigration cases.
The decisions come as the Trump administration intensifies what it has described as a “whole-of-government” approach to immigration enforcement. Agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol, the FBI, and the DEA have been directed to coordinate more closely and expand arrests and removals. That strategy has drawn mounting criticism from advocates who argue it risks civil liberties violations and racial profiling.
Read also: Trump’s ‘massive illegal crackdown’ is failing, but he eyes new controversial decision
In Oregon, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai ordered ICE to stop arresting residents without a judicial warrant. His ruling requires agents conducting civil immigration arrests to either secure a warrant in advance or demonstrate probable cause not only that a person is removable, but also that the individual poses a genuine risk of fleeing before a warrant can be obtained.
Kasubhai found there is a strong likelihood that the immigrants who brought the lawsuit will ultimately succeed in showing that ICE has misused its arrest and deportation authority. He described recent enforcement actions as unlawful “dragnets,” stating that agents detained people without individualized probable cause or court authorization. Such conduct, he determined, likely violates the Fourth Amendment’s safeguard against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The judge also expressed deep skepticism about the agency’s compliance record. He wrote that ICE has a “longstanding history of noncompliance with these same laws,” adding that the court had little confidence the agency would voluntarily halt the challenged practices, even as it maintained that it was acting within the law. His injunction makes clear that civil immigration arrests in Oregon must now meet stricter constitutional standards.
On the same day, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minnesota issued a parallel rebuke. He converted an earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction blocking federal authorities from arresting refugees without a warrant or without first establishing probable cause that they present an escape risk.
Tunheim’s 66-page opinion rejected the government’s interpretation of immigration law that it said allowed for detaining certain refugees beyond 366 days. He concluded that the reading advanced by the Department of Homeland Security lacked clear authorization from Congress and conflicted with decades of established practice under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
In pointed language, Tunheim wrote that the court would not permit federal authorities to rely on what he called a new and erroneous statutory interpretation to “terrorize refugees” who had been admitted to the United States with assurances of safety.
“This Court will not allow federal authorities to use a new and erroneous statutory interpretation to terrorize refugees who immigrated to this country under the promise that they would be welcomed and allowed to live in peace, far from the persecution they fled,” the judge wrote.
The Minnesota order requires the release of refugees already detained under the contested policy and bars new detentions based solely on that interpretation. The ruling adds to growing scrutiny of ICE’s detention practices nationwide, including other high-profile cases that have fueled debate over the agency’s methods.
Advocates welcomed the decisions. Sarah Kahn, senior staff attorney for CHRCL, said the rulings reinforce the country’s obligation to honor commitments made to refugees. She stated that people who fled violence were promised peace and protection in the United States, and argued that detaining and seeking to deport them under the challenged policy undermines that pledge.
Together, the Oregon and Minnesota decisions underscore a clear message from the federal bench: immigration enforcement, even amid heightened national efforts, must operate within statutory and constitutional limits.
