A federal judge on Saturday denied an emergency request from Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to block a large-scale surge of federal immigration enforcement agents, allowing the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge to continue despite weeks of unrest, multiple shootings, and mounting legal challenges.
The ruling came as state and local officials argued that the deployment of roughly 3,000 federal agents violated state sovereignty and amounted to unlawful coercion. The court was unpersuaded.
“Plaintiffs have provided no metric by which to determine when lawful law enforcement becomes unlawful commandeering,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez wrote, adding that a claim the operation had gone “so far on the other side of the line” was insufficient to justify a preliminary injunction.
According to The New York Times, Judge Menendez concluded that Minnesota failed to meet the legal burden required to temporarily halt federal enforcement, even as she acknowledged the extraordinary nature of the dispute and the real-world consequences tied to the surge.
The lawsuit was filed after a series of shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis, including the deaths of two U.S. citizens and the injury of a Venezuelan national alleged to be in the country illegally. State attorneys urged the court to intervene immediately, describing the operation as an “invasion” that had destabilized the Twin Cities.
“Plaintiffs have made a strong showing that Operation Metro Surge has had, and will likely continue to have, profound and even heartbreaking, consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities and Minnesotans,” the judge wrote, while still declining to grant the injunction.
Local coverage emphasized that the ruling was narrow and procedural, not a final judgment on the legality of the enforcement campaign itself.
Judge Menendez stressed that her decision “does not make a final determination on the state’s claim” and is not a ruling on “the legality of specific actions taken by federal agents.”
The Trump administration defended the operation as a lawful exercise of federal authority, arguing that blocking the surge would undermine immigration enforcement nationwide.
Granting the injunction, Menendez wrote, would “harm the federal government’s efforts to enforce federal immigration laws,” concluding that Minnesota had not clearly shown how federal discretion crossed a constitutional line.
While the surge remains in place for now, the broader legal fight is far from over. Judge Menendez ordered additional briefing from the federal government, signaling that scrutiny of Operation Metro Surge, and its political and constitutional implications, is likely to continue as tensions in Minnesota remain high.
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