Judge blocks Trump officials from detaining refugees in Minnesota | Minnesota

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from detaining refugees in Minnesota after a spate of arrests in the state.

More than 100 refugees who settled legally in the state have been arrested in recent weeks, according to lawyers and advocacy groups. Some were taken to detention centers in Texas and then abruptly released, leaving them to find their way home and pay, according to attorneys representing the cases.

On Wednesday, US district judge John R Tunheim ordered the administration to temporarily halt the arrest and detention of legally resettled refugees, while litigation over the administration’s policy of “revetting” this population continued. The judge ordered the immediate release of all refugees detained in Minnesota and the release of those taken to Texas within five days.

The decision comes after lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of refugees after the Trump administration announced “Operation Parris” earlier this month, which it described as “a sweeping initiative to re-examine thousands of refugee cases through new background checks and intensive verification of refugee claims.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 5,600 refugees who resettle in the United States and are not yet permanent residents will be subject to this review process.

D Doe, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said he was at home with his family when a man in plainclothes knocked on his door and told him Doe had crashed his car. When Doe went out to check the damage, he was “surrounded by armed men and arrested.” According to the file, he was first detained in Minnesota, then flown to Texas and “interrogated regarding his refugee status.” He was released in Texas and had to find his way home.

“I fled my hometown because I was facing government oppression,” Doe said. “I can’t believe this is happening here again.”

Doe’s wife, herself a refugee, had been afraid to go out since her husband’s arrest and had been staying with friends for fear that agents would return to her home.

Such arrests caused panic among refugees in Minnesota; Many of them were already tired of leaving their homes or going to work for fear of being stopped and racially profiled by thousands of immigration agents conducting aggressive immigration sweeps across the state.

Before refugees are approved to come to the United States, they undergo extensive screening in a process that can take years. When they arrive in the United States, they do so on government-coordinated flights.

Michele Garnett McKenzie, executive director of Defenders of Human Rights, praised the court’s decision, saying: “Operation Parris’ plan to detain legally existing refugees is an unprecedented attack on fundamental human rights enshrined in both the 1951 convention and the Refugee Act 1980.”

The national security department did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s questions about the decision.

One of the most challenging aspects of these detentions, McKenizie said, is that refugees are detained and taken out of state within days or hours, leaving their families scrambling to find them and get legal help. The lawyer said the vast majority of refugees do not have immigration lawyers, as they have already been vetted and legally resettled.

In more than one case, people were flown back to Minnesota and later released after a horrific ordeal of arrest, detention, and transportation out of state, while in at least one case, they were released in the middle of the night without prior notice to their families.

One of his clients was put on a plane from Texas but was not told where he would be sent; this left him with the impression that he was being sent back to his home country. He said he was surprised to find himself in Minnesota once again.

Another said he was released in Texas “without belongings, money, documents.”

“The court finds that the threat of irreparable harm was conducive to prompt relief in this case,” Tunheim said in Wednesday’s decision. “The stories of terror and trauma that named plaintiffs tell in their amended petition make it impossible to ignore this harm.”