The Official "Damned Trump" Thread: Phase II

[Angrboda]

In recent days, judges in Minnesota have expressed frustration that even when complying with their orders, ICE has been doing so in bad faith. Detainees that the agency had whisked to Texas, for example, were being released far from home with no way to contact loved ones or lawyers, and sometimes without their phones, documents or other possessions.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, a Minnesota-based Clinton appointee, recently included a requirement that a released detainee should not be “left outside in dangerous cold” and emphasized that ICE should coordinate the release with a detainee’s lawyer to “ensure humane treatment.”

Frank recently required that if ICE ultimately released a detainee, they must do so: “(1) in Minnesota; (2) with all personal documents and belongings, such as his driver’s license, passport, other immigration documents, and cell phone; (3) without conditions such as ankle monitors or tracking devices; and (4) with all clothing and outerwear he was wearing at the time of detention, or other proper winter attire.”

After a released detainee complained that ICE withheld his crucial documents and identification after releasing him from a Texas facility, U.S. District Judge Susan Nelson, a Minnesota-based Obama appointee, went as far as personally monitoring a UPS tracking number to ensure that the man’s belongings were returned to him. “It appears that the file was delivered today, February 6, 2026, at 9:50 a.m., and was received by a person named ‘Brian,” Nelson wrote in a Saturday order.

Blackwell said the increasingly specific conditions judges were applying to their release orders were responsive to hair splitting by the administration.

“If we say, release the person immediately, then we learn that, having transported him to El Paso or New Mexico, you don’t bring him back. We learn that somebody is put out on the street with just the clothes on their backs and have to figure out how to get back here when they should not have been arrested here in the first place, let alone flown halfway across the continent of North America,” Blackwell said in the Tuesday hearing.

“All right, so you brought them back,” he continued. “We can’t have them released when it’s minus 14 outside. And so now we have to address that. Don’t release them in the circumstances that might endanger their health or safety.”

How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees, step by step