The number of habeas corpus cases filed in Minnesota is ramping back up again, reflecting both renewed ICE enforcement activity and increasingly lenient judges.
Since March 25, when the federal 8th Circuit court of appeals ruled that “shall be detained” meant exactly that in relation to illegal aliens, some 222 new habeascases have been filed in the federal district of Minnesota. These habeas corpus petitions seek the release of illegal aliens held in ICE detention.
The 222 newest cases represent just a part of the more than 1,300 habeas cases filed in Minnesota so far in 2026. January and February saw an explosion of filings tracking Operation Metro Surge. Filings dropped off in March as the Surge wound down.
The Associated Press (AP) reported last week,
ICE arrests 10,000 in 5 days, a sharp late-June surge in Trump’s deportation push
Those are national numbers, but the late-June surge can be seen in Minnesota habeas filings, fueled in part by a big workplace raid in Bemidji, which I wrote about here.
That raid, on a residential roofing jobsite, generated eleven (11) habeas filings last month. Since the 11 cases were scattered among six federal judges, I think it will prove a good case study in the habeas phenomenon. So far, three aliens have been released with the other 8 cases still pending. One judge appears to have declared the concept of workplace raids to be illegal.
Since the March 25 8th Circuit ruling, here are the statistics on habeas rulings in the Minnesota district,