A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop harassing and detaining immigrants who were in this country lawfully. Trump’s deputy policy director, Stephen Miller, was outraged by the decision.
Jan Wolfe of Reuters reported:
WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a recently announced Trump administration policy targeting the roughly 5,600 lawful refugees in Minnesota who are awaiting green cards.
In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis said federal agents likely violated multiple federal statutes by arresting some of these refugees to subject them to additional vetting.
“At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty,” Tunheim wrote. “We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”
Tunheim issued a temporary restraining order blocking federal agents from arresting lawful refugees in Minnesota who have not been charged with immigration violations. The judge said the ruling would remain in place until he can hear additional legal arguments by civil rights groups challenging the policy.
The Trump administration sent thousands of immigration agents to Minneapolis and Saint Paul beginning in December in what officials described as an operation to enforce immigration laws and stop fraud.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, criticized Tunheim’s ruling on X, saying: “The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending.”
The order was a major setback to “Operation PARRIS,” a program announced by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month and billed as “a sweeping initiative reexamining thousands of refugee cases through new background checks.”
Tunheim said his order does not affect DHS’s ability to reexamine refugee applicants and that it “does not impact DHS’s lawful enforcement of immigration laws.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When ICE started arresting people without due process, I overheard two Latino people talking about it in a restaurant. One kept saying, “But you have to have due process.” He understood something fundamental: if ICE can get away with violating someone else’s rights, then nobody is safe. That famous poem is playing out in real time, and that’s not hyperbole. “First they came for the legal refugees…”
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Yes, that fits perfectly in these times. Thanks so much for mentioning it!
According to online sources: Overview of “First They Came”
“First They Came” is a powerful statement by Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor, reflecting on the consequences of inaction during the rise of the Nazi regime. Written in 1946, it serves as a confession of guilt for not speaking out against the persecution of various groups.
Key Themes: The statement follows a repetitive structure, highlighting different groups targeted by the Nazis:
Historical Context: Niemöller initially supported the Nazis but changed his views after being imprisoned for opposing their control over the Protestant Church. His statement reflects a broader message about the dangers of silence and complicity in the face of injustice.
Legacy and Adaptations: The phrase has been widely adapted and used in various contexts to address contemporary issues of oppression and the importance of speaking out against injustice. It serves as a reminder of the consequences of indifference and the need for collective responsibility.
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust: hmd.org.uk
I love how they honored Holocaust Memorial Day across the UK the other day, including at Buckingham Palace: https://hmd.org.uk/news/their-majesties/
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My Latino son-in-law who is a truck driver has been stopped several times, but, fortunately, since he holds a green card, he was released each time. While he never had refugee status, he has had his English repeatedly tested at weigh stations, and he was once detained and placed in handcuffs. He has also had to endure numerous harassing comments from MAGA types he encounters on the road. It is too bad the federal Minnesota law does not apply to all states as legal residents should not have to be subjected to such unfair treatment.
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LAWLESS ICE — CATHOLIC CARDINAL JOSEPH TOBIN has charged that ICE is “A LAWLESS ORGANIZATION”, and he is certainly right because ICE is routinely violating the 4th Amendment of America’s Constitution which bans law enforcement agencies from arresting people without first obtaining a genuine warrant from a magistrate judge. ICE ignores the 4th Amendment requirements and claims that all ICE needs to arrest people and break into their houses is an administrative order issued by ICE officials.
BEFORE AMERICA WON its independence from England the King of England’s soldiers routinely battered down the doors of Americans and carried them off to prison for no reason other than they had protested against the King’s taxes.
THAT’S WHY America’s Founding Fathers wrote the 4th Amendment into the Constitution: To prevent unwarranted arrests and break-ins.
BUT TODAY, King Trump’s ICE troops are again arresting people and breaking into their homes without constitutionally-required warrants.
On January 17, federal District Judge Jeffrey Bryan ruled that ICE is clearly violating the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, but ICE ignored the court ruling and continues arresting people without the constitutionally-required warrant.
So, Cardinal Tobin is correct: ICE is not only a lawless organization — it’s an organization that doesn’t even obey the Constitution.
And ICE is abetted in its lawlessness by Supreme Court Justice (?) Kavanaugh who gave ICE the “Kavanaugh Stop” which basically allows ICE to engage in racial profiling to stop and arrest people simply based on their physical attributes and the way they speak. Kavanaugh is Catholic and should heed the words of Cardinal Tobin and find a way to undo The Kavanaugh Stop, which is also in conflict with the Supreme Court’s long-standing prohibition of racial profiling.
After reading the Wall Street Journal’s very thorough article (“Democrats Lay Out Demands On Immigration Agents as Shutdown Nears”, Jan. 27) delineating the standards that Senate Democrats are laying out for ICE, my question is this:
In the article, Senator Schumer says that Democrats intend to “tighten the rules regarding warrants”: Is Senator Schumer even aware that the tightest rule already in effect regarding warrants is the 4th Amendment of our Constitution, and that the 4th Amendment is simply being ignored by ICE?
There should be no need that any federal agency must be formally required to obey the Constitution; yet, that’s the incomprehensible situation with ICE which claims that mere administrative warrants from its own legal staff are the only warrants it needs to arrest people and even to break down the doors of their houses.
Requiring that ICE obey our nation’s Constitution is far from “throwing a monkey wrench into the system”, as Senator Tuberville complains.
ICE is ignoring Judge Bryan’s January 17 ruling that ICE is in violation of the 4th Amendment — and ICE is ignoring the 4th Amendment with impunity.
Impunity because the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have zero enforcement power. The federal courts rely on the United States Marshals Service (USMS) that is a bureau within the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ is not inclined to send out U.S. Marshals to enforce Judge Bryan’s — or any judge’s — ruling to rein-in ICE or any federal agency.
ICE and the DOJ are doing what President Andrew Jackson said (in paraphrase): “The court has made its ruling — now let them try to enforce it.” Jackson is Trump’s role model. Check out the prominent place of Jackson’s portrait in the White House.
As for requiring that ICE agents be prohibited from wearing masks, it must be noted that the Ku Klux Klan, Hamas, and other terrorist groups wear masks because of the psychological effect that masks have both on the mask-wearers and on their victims: Behind a mask, a person with power is incited to wield that power with more brutality because the mask psychologically separates the power-wielder from the brutality being inflicted: It’s as if someone else is inflicting the brutality. Moreover, the mask generates increased psychological terror in the victim because the power-wielder is perceived as not being human and as a force that can’t be stopped.
Masked ICE agents are the very embodiment of Ku Klux Klan and Hamas.
Mandating that ICE procure warrants from genuine magistrate judges as the 4th Amendment requires will bring calm to the streets of Minneapolis and other cities in which ICE is operating because for each individual whom ICE seeks to arrest ICE must present reasonable supporting evidence for the arrest to a deliberative magistrate judge. ICE “surges” will be tempered by the deliberative process of Due Process.
Banning the wearing of masks by ICE agents will psychologically temper the aggressiveness and impersonal brutality of ICE agents.
These two things — compelling ICE to obey the 4th Amendment, and compelling ICE agents to unmask — by themselves can defuse the ICE enforcement issue before more people die because of it.
Of course, mandating the wearing and actual use of body cameras by ICE agents during field operations is equally important because of the psychological factor that agents will know that what they do and say is being recorded.
Please ask Senator Schumer if he is even aware that the tightest rule already in effect regarding warrants is the 4th Amendment of our Constitution, that the Amendment is being ignored by ICE, and that ICE must be compelled to obey the 4th Amendment.
(Copy this and share it.)
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According to DuckDuckGo’s Ai: People can contact Senator Chuck Schumer at the following Office Locations and Phone Numbers:
Washington, D.C. Office:
322 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510 (202) 224-6542
New York Office:
757 Third Avenue, Suite 17-02, New York, NY 10017 (212) 486-4430
Online Contacts
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Miller is fortunate, isn’t he, that he can’t see himself in a mirror.
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I remain incredulous that there are STILL people out there, including the near-entirety of elected Republicans, who SUPPORT this horrible, pathetic excuse of a human being (I’m talking about Trump, but the description applies to Stephen SS Miller too).
Yet, as David French pointed out this morning in the NY Times,
“Protests make MAGA mad. Journalism makes MAGA mad. Accountability makes MAGA mad. And the anger keeps building until a single sentence starts to spread across the length and breadth of Trump’s base: ‘Invoke the Insurrection Act.’…the MAGA movement is gripped by its own paroxysm of anger.’
the Trump administration lies with such regularity and brazenness that one should presume that it’s being dishonest until we can see with our own eyes the evidence that supports its account.”
And, as Hillary Clinton noted today in The Atlantic,
“a quarter of Republicans and nearly 40 percent of Christian nationalists now agree that ‘empathy is a dangerous emotion that undermines our ability to set up a society that is guided by God’s truth.’ MAGA rejects the teachings of Jesus to ‘love thy neighbor’ and care for ‘the last, the least, and the lost.’ It recognizes only a zero-sum war of all against all. The world may look gilded from the patio at Mar-a-Lago, but the MAGA view is fundamentally fearful and impoverished. MAGA sees a world of vengeance, scorn, and humiliation, and cannot imagine generosity or solidarity.”
She WAS right…a basket of “deplorables.” And then some.
In Minnesota, Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, a conservative jurist appointed by George W, Bush and a former clerk to ultra-conservative Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia, wrote that
“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election, under the terms of a warrant that still have not been revealed, to satisfy a narcissistic psychopath’s delusional fantasies and conspiracy theories, AND, to lay the ground work to screw with the mid-term elections.
We ARE in some deep shit.
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