A federal judge has issued broad limits on the tactics immigration agents may employ when responding to protests against their following a series of allegations of arbitrary detentions and excessive used against .
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez’s in a preliminary injunction issued Friday prohibits agents from using pepper spray, making arrests, detaining, or retaliating against “individuals participating in peaceful and non-disruptive protest activity.”
It also forbids agents from stopping and arresting drivers who are not “forcibly obstructing or interfering.” The decision explicitly notes that a vehicle safely trailing immigration agents’ vehicles does not, by itself, warrant a traffic stop. Numerous immigration activist groups monitor and follow the movements of immigration enforcement officers using their own vehicles.
Menendez clarifies that the order is limited to Minnesota and only applies to agents part of Operation Metro Surge—the official term for the large-scale deployment of nearly 3,000 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol to the Minneapolis area, purportedly to arrest undocumented immigrants and investigate fraud.
The ruling is a response to a lawsuit filed by the in December on behalf of six people who claim ICE violated their constitutional rights. One woman arrested while watching ICE activity in her neighborhood states the agency was “retaliating against her for asking about, observing, and protesting their actions in her community.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman, told TIME in a statement regarding the preliminary injunction that the agency is “taking appropriate and constitutional steps to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.” She further noted that law enforcement “used the least amount of force necessary to safeguard themselves, the public, and federal property.”
What has been happening in Minnesota
The ruling comes ten days after the death of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, ignited large-scale protests in Minneapolis.
Good was shot four times in her car by ICE agent Jonathan Ross as she attempted to drive away from a protest. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has defended the agent’s actions, asserting he acted in self-defense and branding Good a “domestic terrorist.”
Protests in Minneapolis have grown more violent in recent days, with demonstrators reporting the use of pepper spray, and “non-lethal rounds.”
Two were blinded by “non-lethal” rounds during a protest in Santa Ana, California.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a 72-page lawsuit on on behalf of three community members, accusing ICE in Minnesota of violating citizens’ constitutional rights and using racial profiling in its crackdown on protesters.
“Thousands of masked federal agents are violently stopping and arresting numerous Minnesotans based solely on their race and perceived ethnicity—regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, or their personal situations,” the lawsuit states.
A separate in Minneapolis last week further heightened tensions, as city officials continue to demand ICE depart the city.
“We still have much to learn at this point, but one thing I know for sure is that this is not sustainable,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated at a Wednesday night press conference following the latest shooting. Frey had previously told ICE to “get the f—k out” of Minneapolis after Good’s shooting.
The Trump Administration has repeatedly cited self-defense as a justification for recent , and has argued that federal agents have for actions taken in the name of the U.S. government. Local leaders and Democrats such as Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have strongly disputed that legal interpretation.
Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota but said last week: “I don’t think there’s any reason right now to use it.”
The last time a U.S. president used the power to suppress an insurrection was during the 1992 Rodney King protests, when George H.W. Bush was asked by the then-California Governor to calm protests in Los Angeles after four police officers beat King on the street.
News of the restrictions comes as the Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly investigating Walz and Frey—both Democrats—for potential obstruction of federal law enforcement due to comments they made about the federal deployment in Minneapolis. Both leaders have sharply criticized ICE’s presence in the state.
“Two days ago it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly. Using the justice system as a weapon against your opponents is an authoritarian tactic,” Walz said in a . “The only person not being investigated for Renee Good’s shooting is the federal agent who killed her.”
