One measure of the astounding success of the current ICE operation in Minnesota can be found in the explosion of Habeas Corpus filings in Federal District Court in Minnesota.
It seems that as soon as an illegal alien is taken into custody, a lawyer rushes to court asking for release. Immigration advocates have learned that they will get a far more sympathetic hearing in the mostly liberal district court than they will at the now-besieged Immigration Court located at Ft. Snelling.
As of this morning (January 15), 172 such petitions have been filed in Federal District Court since the beginning of the year. That number represents 53 percent of all the 323 civil cases filed with the court in 2026. Usually, the civil case docket is filled with garden variety product liability and contract dispute lawsuits.
Expressed a different way, in 2025, it took until January 27 before we reached civil case No. 323.
I first started tracking these habeas cases back in mid-April 2025. In the final 7-and-a-half months of 2025, we saw 123 habeas cases filed in Minnesota. In 2026, we hit the No. 123 mark on Tuesday, January 13, just seven business days into the new year.
Even before the late unpleasantness, the local branch of the U.S. Department of Justice was understaffed. Neither the court nor the DOJ has the capacity to deal with the flood of litigation supporting illegal aliens.
In the immortal words of Warren Zevon, “send lawyers, guns, and money.” Minnesota needs a lot more of the former in the U.S. Attorney’s office.
