“We allege that DHS’s use of excessive and lethal force, their warrantless, racist arrests, their targeting of our courts, our churches, houses of worship and schools are a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act on arbitrary and capricious federal actions,” Ellison said. “And we ask that the courts will end the surge of thousands of DHS agents in Minnesota.”
Officials in Minnesota and Illinois have filed separate lawsuits against the Trump administration, claiming that the federal government’s immigration-enforcement activities likely violate each state’s sovereignty.
According to CNN, both lawsuits cited the 10th Amendment to support allegations that the far-ranging deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents runs afoul of constitutional provisions detailing the separation of powers between the federal and state governments.
“The Constitution gives Minnesota the sovereign authority to protect [the] health and wellbeing of every single person who lives in our borders,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement. “We’re going to defend those rights because—as much as they like to believe it—[the Department of Homeland Security] is not above the law, and the people of Minnesota are certainly not beneath it.”
The Guardian notes that Minnesota’s lawsuit was filed shortly after ICE agent Jonathon Ross fatally shot and killed Renee Nicole Good behind the wheel of her own vehicle. Publicly-released footage of the incident appears to show Good trying to evade ICE agents, but the Trump administration has characterized Good’s use of her vehicle’s steering wheel as evidence that the young mother was, in fact, a domestic terrorist intent on causing grave physical injury to Ross and his colleagues.
Good’s death has led to more frequent—and more furious—protests across the state.
The Trump administration, in response, has said that it plans to send even more ICE agents to Minnesota; the president has also repeatedly floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act, which could allow him to federalize the Minnesota National Guard and deploy other military units to the state.
In a press release, Ellison’s office indicated that Good’s death—along with other instances of overreach—is causing potentially irreparable harm to Minnesota and Minnesotans.
“We allege that DHS’s use of excessive and lethal force, their warrantless, racist arrests, their targeting of our courts, our churches, houses of worship and schools are a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act on arbitrary and capricious federal actions,” Ellison said. “And we ask that the courts will end the surge of thousands of DHS agents in Minnesota.”
“The deployment of thousands of armed DHS agents to Minnesota has done our state serious harm,” Ellison said. “This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop.”
“This surge has made us less safe,” he added.
In a separate statement, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said that his office plans to hold the Trump administration “accountable for their unlawful tactics, unnecessary escalations, and flagrant abuses of power.”
President Trump, for his part, has insisted on the continuity of immigration-enforcement operations. In a typically bizarre and bombastic post to Truth Social, the president wrote, in all caps, “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”
Sources
Minnesota sues Trump administration to block immigration agents deployment
Minnesota and Illinois Sue Trump Administration Over ICE Deployments
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