US judge temporarily blocks arrests of refugees in Minnesota News
Chad Davis from Minneapolis, United States, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Park and 35th Street is 2 blocks away from where ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good on January 7, 2026.
US judge temporarily blocks arrests of refugees in Minnesota

A US federal court on Wednesday issued an order blocking the Trump administration from arresting and detaining refugees living in Minnesota while a case challenging the initiative proceeds.

The District Court for the District of Minnesota issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits President Donald Trump from using Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to arrest refugees who are living in Minnesota, but are not yet legal citizens.

The order comes as a response to a challenge filed in Minnesota by a group of refugees represented by non-profit groups International Refugee Assistance Project, Beer Montague, and the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

Judge John R. Tunheim penned the opinion with a focus on the legality of refugees living in Minnesota, stating:

It is…essential to emphasize that the refugees impacted by this Order are carefully and thoroughly vetted individuals who have been invited into the United States because of persecution in the countries from which they have come. They are not committing crimes on our streets, nor did they illegally cross the border. Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully—and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries.

The administration’s Operation PARRIS, launched in early January, aims to reexamine legal status of refugees in Minnesota through more intensive background checks and a more thorough verification of refugee claims. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that its top priority always is to protect American citizens first, and PARRIS does so by preventing the immigration system  from being “weaponized” in Minnesota, which DHS has called “ground zero for the war on fraud.”

PARRIS falls under a wider campaign pursued by Trump since his issuing of Executive Order 14161 on January 30, 2025, and Proclamation 10949 of June 4, 2025, which both implement harsher immigration restrictions.

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