By Gonzalez Olivieri, on Immigration Updates
A federal judge in Minnesota has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of immigrant detainees by holding them in overcrowded, ill-equipped facilities without access to attorneys. Judge Nancy Brasel, a Trump appointee, rejected the government’s argument that providing lawyer access would cause chaos, stating that the Constitution does not permit mass detention while disregarding detainees’ rights. The ruling came after the administration surged thousands of federal agents into the Minneapolis area for deportation operations, during which in-person attorney visits that had previously been allowed were discontinued.
The decision represents the latest rebuke from Minnesota federal judges who have repeatedly found the administration to be in violation of court orders regarding illegal transfers, that it ignored release orders, and that it missed legal deadlines. In a related development, the Justice Department dropped criminal charges against two men after prosecutors acknowledged that “newly discovered evidence” contradicted the original allegations made by an ICE agent, with judges having previously ordered the men’s release despite ICE attempts to keep them detained and deport witnesses to the incident.
For more information on this, and other immigration matters, contact the attorneys at Gonzalez Olivieri LLC today.
Reference:
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein, Court Rebukes Trump Administration for Denying Immigration Detainees Access to Lawyers, POLITICO (Feb. 12, 2026, 10:46 PM EST), https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/12/court-trump-administration-denying-immigration-lawyers-00779762.
