By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a recently announced Trump administration policy targeting the roughly 5,600 lawful refugees in Minnesota who are
awaiting green cards.
In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis said federal agents likely violated multiple federal statutes by arresting some of these refugees to subject them to additional vetting.
"At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty," Tunheim wrote. "We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos."
Tunheim issued a temporary restraining order blocking federal agents from arresting lawful refugees in Minnesota who have not been charged with immigration violations. The judge said the ruling would remain in place until he can hear additional legal arguments by civil rights groups challenging the policy.
The Trump administration sent thousands of immigration agents to Minneapolis and Saint Paul beginning in December in what officials described as an operation to enforce immigration laws and stop fraud.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump's immigration agenda, criticized Tunheim's ruling on X, saying: "The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending."
The order was a major setback to "Operation PARRIS," a program announced by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month and billed as "a sweeping initiative reexamining thousands of refugee cases through new background checks."
Tunheim said his order does not affect DHS's ability to reexamine refugee applicants and that it "does not impact DHS’s lawful enforcement of immigration laws."
Tunheim said the refugees impacted by his order are carefully vetted individuals who "have a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause."
Kimberly Grano, a lawyer at the International Refugee Assistance Project, which is involved in the litigation, said in a press release the order will put in place "desperately-needed guardrails" on federal agents.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Tom Hogue)
