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It’s been just more than two months since the Trump administration began implementing its plans to deport more people in the country without legal status. And the impact is being felt at the Fort Snelling Immigration Court, which is located inside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. 

There are currently seven immigration judges assigned to the court, and their dockets are often full. 

In court are also groups of observers who are concerned about the rights of immigrants in the court system. They track trends and cases.

On a recent day in the court lobby, several people, including families with children who are seeking asylum, showed up for their mandatory court hearings. 

Dozens of these asylum seekers filled the benches in the courtroom of Immigration Judge Kalin Ivany. 

Families waited their turns as they were called to answer questions about how they entered the U.S. and learn which applications are available to them. 

Judge Ivany, greeting each person with a smile, explained the asylum application process, the importance of updating their addresses and the need for documents in English or with translations. 

Almost every person was not represented by an attorney and communicated in Spanish with the judge through a courtroom interpreter. Many were from Ecuador and Venezuela, some were from Honduras. 

On a different day, a different judge presided over a docket of cases involving men facing deportation.

The men, wearing jail uniforms, appeared on a screen in the courtroom of Judge Audrey Carr.

One of the men who appeared in front of Carr on this day became emotional. The man, who came to the U.S. from Ecuador in 2022 without legal status and lived in Minneapolis until he was arrested by ICE, was being held in a detention center in Louisiana. 

He was upset his hearing was delayed since he was moved out of state. 

Through an interpreter, he said he was a family man and that his 4-year-old daughter cries every day because she misses him. Carr told him that if he wanted to be released, only a judge in Louisiana could have that power.

There are also people in detention who are desperate to be released, and ask judges to issue their removal orders.

Some of the people who’ve been detained have been charged with DUIs or domestic assaults. However, some in detention have no criminal background at all.

Those cases may fall under “collateral arrests” — when, during targeted arrests, ICE asks those nearby for their IDs or about their immigration status and arrests those who don’t have legal status. 

Lawyers seeing more people without criminal records being detained

Immigration attorneys say they are seeing an increase in detained cases of people without a criminal history compared to just the last four years. They also confirm an additional day has been added in court for judges to accommodate case loads. 

However, attorneys say this pace of work is not uncommon. Immigration attorney Gloria Contreras Edin says she worked on similar cases mostly under the Obama administration.

“I was in court three, four, five times a day, sometimes three days a week. And so these were individuals that were being detained because they were here without status,” Contreras Edin said.

Contreras Edin notes a difference she’s noticed under the Trump administration are the photos taken of detainees, which are then posted to White House social media accounts. 

While ICE arrests aren’t new, Contreras Edin says something she hasn’t seen before in her many years as a practicing lawyer is the amount of people detained who are being moved to out of state jails in Louisiana, Texas and Colorado. 

This is causing delayed hearings as immigration attorneys try to track down their clients. 

Outside of the issue of capacity, Contreras Edin questions the strategy. 

“They’re being moved out to locations where they may have a different outcome. I mean, the immigration judge in one jurisdiction may have a different opinion on how they rule on whether an individual gets a bond. So they may view the fact pattern different than a judge here in Minnesota,” she said.

Sarah Thamer

Author

It’s been just more than two months since the Trump administration began implementing its plans to deport more people in the country without legal status. And the impact is being felt at the Fort Snelling Immigration Court.

MPR News senior reporter Sarah Thamer talks on All Things Considered about the state of court rooms with increased immigrant enforcement

A sign reads Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in front of a building

Minnesota lawyers say increased immigration enforcement is filling courtrooms

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