Immigration advocates challenge federal refugee policy in court
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Advocates for immigrants Thursday argued that a federal judge should extend a temporary restraining order barring federal agencies from detaining refugees in Minnesota who have been in the country for more than a year.
Advocates are challenging the government’s stance that they can now investigate and detain refugees who are not yet permanent residents. The case could affect 5,600 people in Minnesota who are originally from Africa, Asia or Latin America.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced an operation in early January to reexamine the legal status of Minnesota’s refugees. People with this status were arrested without warrants and sometimes transported across the country.
United States District Judge John R. Tunheim previously issued a temporary restraining order on Jan. 28 against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security banning them from arresting more refugees in Minnesota and requiring the government to release any refugees currently in custody. That restraining order is set to lapse on Feb. 25.
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E. Michelle Drake, Executive Shareholder at the firm Berger Montague, which is challenging the policy along with the Advocates for Human Rights, argued that the federal government’s actions were a “major deviation” from past practices.
“These are warrantless, surprise arrests of law-abiding individuals who were approved before entering this country,” Drake said. “This is exactly what the Fourth Amendment was concerned about.”
U.S. Department of Justice attorney Brantley Mayers argued that refugees can be subject to arrest related to their initial interview on entry to the country. He said Homeland Security has discretion to arrest refugees who’ve been in the U.S. for more than one year who don’t voluntarily return to their home countries. The refugees subject to this policy were allowed into the U.S. because of fears they might be subject to violence or arrest in their home countries.
Tunheim said the government’s argument seemed “like a solution looking for a problem.”
One of the refugees identified in court documents as D. Doe was arrested on Jan. 11 when a federal agent dressed in street clothes knocked on his door to say he’d hit Doe’s car. The agent initially described someone else’s car, but returned a few minutes later with an accurate description of Doe’s car. When Doe went outside to check the damage, he was surrounded by armed men and arrested.
Federal authorities immediately flew Doe to a detention center in Texas, where he was interrogated about his refugee status and kept in “shackles and handcuffs” for 16 hours, according to court documents. He was later released in Texas and left to find his way home to Minnesota.
Advocates said in a press conference following the hearing that they expect the government to continue arresting and seeking to deport refugees without a restraining order. Mevlüde Akay Alp, a staff attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the government’s most recent memorandum made clear that they plan to implement this policy nationally, which could impact more than 100,000 people.
“The government’s actions here in Minnesota are unprecedented and dangerous, and they’re part of this administration’s broader campaign to strip immigrants of their legal status and deport them,” Akay Alp said. “Everybody should be disturbed by this and by the administration’s insistence that they have the right to indefinitely detain people who have legal status and who are not accused of any wrongdoing.”
A decision on the temporary restraining order is expected by next week.
