US states mount legal battle against federal immigration enforcement surges

By Yasin Gungor

ISTANBUL (AA) - A growing number of US states have launched a multi-front legal offensive against the Trump administration’s more expansive and far-reaching immigration enforcement efforts, moving the battle over border policy from the campaign trail to the courtroom as local officials seek to curb controversial crackdowns within their jurisdictions.

The legal challenges, spearheaded by attorneys general in Minnesota, Illinois, and California, target US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), agencies which have drawn criticism and large protests this year through aggressive immigrant crackdowns in high-profile states.

This pushback has expanded beyond individual lawsuits; Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell recently led a coalition of 20 of her counterparts in filing an amicus (friend of the court) brief supporting Minnesota, condemning the federal operations as "militarized and illegal."

State officials allege that recent federal operations, known as "surges," have bypassed constitutional norms, utilized excessive force, and commandeered local police resources in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

- Operation Metro Surge sparks constitutional clash

The epicenter of the conflict is the Midwestern state of Minnesota, where federal authorities last December launched "Operation Metro Surge," deploying more than 3,000 agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area, an unprecedented scale for a domestic immigration operation. The state’s Attorney General Keith Ellison, alongside city officials from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, filed a federal lawsuit to halt the operation, alleging racial profiling and the diversion of local law enforcement resources.

"The unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota," Ellison said in court filings, arguing that the federal government was trying to "intimidate Minnesota and bend the state to the federal government's will." The Trump administration-controlled Justice Department dismissed the state's legal theories as "frivolous," contending that a state cannot veto the enforcement of federal law.

Local officials also charged that the reason for the crackdown was not immigrants — which they argued did not pose a problem requiring federal involvement — but rather the state’s and Twin Cities’ Democratic leaders, and Minnesota’s electoral support for Democratic presidential candidates.

- Civil rights concerns and racial profiling

The operations have turned fatal.

On Jan. 7, an agent shot and killed Minnesota resident Renee Good, whom the Trump administration branded a "professional agitator" and accused of "domestic terrorism." The administration has also refused to investigate her shooting, while rejecting any cooperation with a state probe, as well.

Weeks later, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who was filming agents with his cellphone, was tackled and shot dead by multiple agents. Bystander video directly contradicted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's claim that Pretti had attacked agents; the footage showed he never drew his legally carried firearm.

John Boehler, a representative for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota, told Anadolu that in the recent crackdown, federal agents have abandoned standard due process.

"The way the American law is structured is that in order to make a stop … the federal government needs to know who they are stopping," he said, explaining that agents must have a reasonable belief that a person is removable and poses a flight risk.

Instead, he said, "the federal government is mostly just stopping Black and brown people, assuming that they are immigrants, and then determining their status after the fact, which is not in accordance with the law."

The ACLU filed parallel litigation to protect the First Amendment — free speech and free assembly — rights of protest observers and restrict racial profiling. Boehler said the goal is to force federal agents to "return to the constitutional standards that existed before this operation began," namely probable cause for any stop.

- Illinois joins the fray

In neighboring Illinois – also governed by Democrats – Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over Operation Midway Blitz, citing tear gas, a military-style raid on a Chicago apartment building, warrantless arrests, and biometric scanning of residents without court authority. Raoul charged that the agents "have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law."

Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a lawyer and policy analyst with the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, described the moment as historic. "What we are seeing right now is a very real increase in both state and local activity," she told Anadolu. "It is coming in the form of resistance to federal immigration operations through a number of different tactics, some of which are innovative and different than what has been used before."

- Battle over detention conditions

California has focused its legal challenge on detention infrastructure, leveraging state health and safety codes against private, for-profit ICE facilities. In the case of Gomez Ruiz v. ICE, a federal judge ordered the agency to rectify inhumane conditions at the California City Detention Facility, including medical neglect and overcrowding.

The state also enacted Senate Bill 627, the No Secret Police Act, barring federal agents from wearing masks during operations without a judicial warrant. In late January, the state Senate passed SB 747, creating a private right of action allowing residents to sue federal agents directly in state court for constitutional abuses such as excessive force and unlawful searches.

The controversy has reached Congress. Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois on Jan. 14 introduced a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, accusing her of “high crimes and misdemeanors” related to the fatal shootings of Good and Pretti, as well as the alleged misuse of $200 million in federal funds through no-bid contracts, including ones allegedly awarded through nepotism.

Bush-Joseph noted that litigation serves a dual purpose. "Lawsuits do not immediately result in changes oftentimes," she cautioned, but added they can limit specific behaviors such as the use of force against protesters or the out-of-state transfer of detainees.

- Judicial mixed bag and partial victories

Results in court have been mixed. US District Judge Katherine Menendez denied a preliminary injunction to halt Operation Metro Surge.

However, US District Judge Nancy Brasel issued a temporary restraining order requiring ICE to provide detainees access to legal counsel after finding the agency had blocked communication with lawyers and transferred detainees out of state before they could seek help.

Boehler called it a concrete victory, adding that litigation in other states has also forced agents to wear body cameras and restricted the use of rubber bullets and other "less lethal weaponry."

- Role of citizen evidence

A defining feature of the current conflict is the role of citizen surveillance. Bush-Joseph noted that official government accounts of violent incidents have repeatedly been discredited by bystander video.

"In many cases, the official government account that was put forward in the initial aftermath of some of these events has been discredited," she said, "and that is partly because of the videos that people are taking and then submitting as evidence."

Boehler agreed: "When we see someone shot and killed on the ground … it is very helpful to have people on the street filming that encounter. They have been incredibly helpful for us to both push for reforms and how the agents are acting on the street."

Yet that surveillance has not come without a cost, as in the killing of Pretti, who was filming law enforcement agents before he was fatally shot, as well as at least one viral video encounter in which an observer asked an agent why he was taking down her information, to which he replied: "Cause we have a nice little database. And now you're considered a domestic terrorist."

- Federal defense and political divides

The Trump administration maintains that the operations are lawful and necessary. Border czar Tom Homan defended the Minnesota campaign, stating: "Through targeted enforcement operations based on reasonable suspicion, and prioritizing safety and security, ICE will continue to identify, arrest, and remove illegal aliens who pose a risk to public safety."

Yet critics say the ICE arrests are not the “worst of the worst” criminals Trump had pledged to target, but rather longstanding residents, people with jobs and families and no criminal records, and who pose no threat.

Homan also criticized sanctuary jurisdictions — where local law enforcement has limited cooperation on enforcing immigration law — for forcing more dangerous community arrests and has also conditioned any drawdown of forces on local cooperation.

"My goal, with the support of President Trump, is to achieve a complete drawdown and end this surge as soon as we can," he said.

Visiting Minneapolis, Vice President JD Vance blamed "far-left agitators" for the violent federal response, and described Good's death as "a tragedy of her own making." The Justice Department further raised tensions by issuing subpoenas to multiple Minnesota Democratic officials to investigate whether state leaders had impeded the surge.

- Future outlook

As litigation works through the courts, the situation on the ground remains tense. New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte negotiated the cancellation of a proposed ICE facility through direct talks with Noem, but most states show no sign of backing down.

In several states, vocal public opposition to planned ICE mega detention centers – some designed to hold 10,000-15,000 people – has led the government to abandon local plans and look elsewhere to build the centers.

Bush-Joseph predicted that disputes over state cooperation and federal overreach will continue throughout the second Trump administration, which has nearly three more years to go.

She said the divide runs in multiple directions. While Democratic-led states sue to stop ICE, Republican-led states often sue to force local cooperation. "You could have a Democrat-led or Democrat-majority city in a very Republican area," she said, with cooperation conflicts emerging across the political map.

For advocates on the ground, the lawsuits are a necessary shield, even if not a “silver bullet” that could deliver a decisive blow. "We are still seeing constitutional violations around the state," Boehler said. "And so we are still very much in need of relief from this federal occupation here in Minnesota."

He said that the federal government could continue its actions despite court rulings, noting “there are certainly other means that the federal government has used to follow up on immigrants, to threaten them, to make them uncomfortable here.”

Some Republican officials have suggested ICE officers should be deployed near polling stations this fall, raising fears that a heavy law enforcement presence may be intended to reduce voter turnout in the critical midterm elections, especially among minorities such as Hispanics who might fear being detained over their appearance, even if they are citizens.