ICE blocked detainees’ access to lawyers in Minnesota, judge finds

February 13, 2026 / Reuters

Feb 12 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ensure that detainees have access to their attorneys in Minnesota, after finding that the agency had blocked thousands of people from seeing their lawyers during a recent enforcement surge.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, said ICE’s practices during the recent Operation Metro Surge, including a policy of quickly moving detainees out of Minnesota and depriving them of phone calls, “all but extinguish a detainee’s access to counsel.”

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Brasel made the initial ruling in a class action lawsuit that was filed on behalf of detainees on January 27 and her order will remain in place for 14 days while the proceedings play out.

The court order requires the government to stop rapidly transferring detainees out of the state and to allow attorney-client visits and private phone calls between detainees and their lawyers.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said detainees have access to phones that they can use to contact their families and lawyers and denied that there was any “overcrowding” at the Minneapolis federal building where detainees are processed.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Democracy Forward, a nonprofit that filed the lawsuit on behalf of detainees, said that the right to a lawyer is not “optional” in the U.S.

“DHS has been detaining people in a building never meant for long-term custody, shackling them, secretly transferring them out of state and blocking access to counsel and oversight in a deliberate effort to evade accountability,” Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said in a statement.

ICE did not dispute that detainees had a constitutional right to counsel and it said it does not have a policy of preventing detainees from seeing their lawyers, according to the ruling. But in practice, it provided conditions that isolated thousands of people from their attorneys, Brasel said.

The plaintiffs, who are noncitizen detainees, had provided substantial and specific evidence about their detention conditions, which contradicted ICE’s “threadbare” explanations of its policies and its protestations that it did not have enough resources to provide detainees with access to their lawyers, the judge found.

“Defendants allocated substantial resources to sending thousands of agents to Minnesota, detaining thousands of people and housing them in their facilities,” Brasel said in her ruling. “Defendants cannot suddenly lack resources when it comes to protecting detainees’ constitutional rights.”

Most detainees are initially held at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, but many are immediately transferred out of state, without notice, with no way for attorneys to contact them, according to the ruling.

Detainees are sometimes moved so quickly and frequently that ICE loses track of where they are, the judge found.

Most detainees are provided some phone access, but that falls short of providing adequate legal representation, Brasel’s ruling said.

ICE does not always provide the name or phone number of a lawyer when detainees ask and phone calls often take place in a public area where ICE personnel and other detainees can listen in, according to the ruling.

One detainee in the lawsuit, a 20-year-old asylum seeker with a government-issued work permit, was sent to a detention center where ICE provided two flip phones to be shared among 72 detainees in a single holding cell, according to the court ruling. The detainees each had no more than two minutes for a call, it said.

The 20-year-old detainee was released after 18 days in detention, despite a court order requiring his release after five days. In the meantime, he was transferred first to Texas and then to New Mexico before being returned to Minnesota; ICE officers never told him why he was detained or why he was released, according to the ruling.

Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

节点运行失败

将逾一公斤“卡痛”毒品藏行李箱 27岁外籍男被捕

发布/2026年2月13日 10:52

27岁外籍男旅客企图将“卡痛”粉末藏在行李箱内，但终难逃执法人员法眼。 （取自移民与关卡局脸书）

一名外籍男旅客将逾一公斤“卡痛”粉末藏在行李箱，被执法人员识破后遭逮捕。

移民与关卡局星期五（2月13日）在脸书发文说，当局于1月29日在新加坡游轮中心注意到一名27岁的外籍男旅客神情紧张，于是对他的行李进行详细检查，搜出大约1.02公斤疑似“卡痛”（Kratom）的粉末。

根据贴文附上的视频，执法人员在男旅客的粉色行李箱发现一个黄色包裹，切开后包裹内还不断有烟雾冒出，露出棕色的“卡痛”粉末。

贴文提到，“卡痛”含有帽柱碱（Mitragynine）及“7-Hydroxymitragynine”，这些都属于A级受管制药物。走私任何A级受管制药物若罪成，违例者将面对至少五年监禁及鞭刑五下。

目前，这名旅客已被逮捕，案件也已移交中央肃毒局作进一步调查。

DOJ drops charges against men accused of assaulting ICE officers in Minneapolis, citing “inconsistent” evidence

February 12, 2026 / 8:37 PM EST / CBS News

The Justice Department moved to drop federal charges against two men charged with assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis last month, including one Venezuelan defendant who was shot in the leg by an officer, citing “newly discovered evidence” that was “materially inconsistent” with the allegations against them.

The filing, entered Thursday by U.S. Attorney in Minnesota Daniel Rosen, moves to dismiss the charges against the men with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be reintroduced.

In January, the two men, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, were charged in a federal criminal complaint with forcibly assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers in performance of their official duties. The charges came after Sosa-Celis was shot by an ICE officer, which drew nationwide attention amid the federal immigration surge in Minnesota.

It is unclear specifically what new information led to the charges getting dismissed. But the government’s account of the alleged assault was not consistent.

A day after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security said Sosa-Celis had fled the scene of a “targeted traffic stop” in Minneapolis in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car and kept fleeing on foot. When an ICE agent caught up to him, two men allegedly attacked the agent with a broom handle and snow shovel, and Sosa-Celis allegedly broke free and also started striking the officer. DHS said an officer then fired a “defensive shot to defend his life.” Sosa-Celis and two other men ran into an apartment but were later taken into custody, DHS said.

But in an affidavit to support charges against the two men, the FBI said that Aljorna — not Sosa-Celis — had fled the scene in a car, and Sosa-Celis was the one who initially struck the ICE officer with a broom stick while he tried to arrest Aljorna. The FBI alleged that Aljorna then broke free and started attacking the ICE officer with the same broomstick. The affidavit also says that the officer “had poor or sporadic lighting” and “had difficulty seeing the assailants.”

And in a cellphone video from the moments after the shooting that was shared online by a state lawmaker, a woman appears to tell a 911 operator that her husband was chased by ICE agents before he reached his home, and was shot in front of his family.

Frederick Goetz, an attorney for Aljorna, told CBS News he’s “delighted” by the decision to dismiss the charges with prejudice. He also commended the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota — which has been hit by a wave of resignations in recent weeks — for “doing the right thing.”

“It is my understanding that the video surveillance evidence that captured the incident was materially inconsistent with the federal agent’s claims of what happened,” Goetz continued, writing that “the agent’s claims of being assaulted were not backed up by the video evidence.”

CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department and an attorney for Sosa-Celis for comment.

The shooting occurred a week after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good in south Minneapolis, and 10 days before two DHS agents in the city fatally shot Alex Pretti.

In the days after Good and Pretti’s shootings, thousands of protesters demonstrated in the streets in Minnesota, raising tensions in the Twin Cities.

At one point, President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send the military into the state, but in the last week, border czar Tom Homan has taken over operations. He announced Thursday the end of the surge of immigration agents in the state, citing a high number of “public safety arrests” during “Operation Metro Surge” and the diminished need for federal officers to respond to “agitators.”

美国公布税收抵免临时规则 遏制中国绿能影响 | 联合早报

发布/2026年2月13日 07:26

美国财政部星期四（2月12日）公布执行总统特朗普一项新税法相关条款的临时规则，这些条款限制过度依赖中国制造商品的企业申领联邦清洁能源补贴。

路透社报道，星期四公布的临时规则适用于清洁能源制造和发电领域的丰厚税收抵免。自特朗普的《大而美法案》去年7月在国会通过以来，太阳能和风能项目开发商以及工厂业主一直期盼政府公布相关指引。

美国财政部下属的国税局说，在公布正式规则之前，企业可以星期四公布的临时规则为依据。国税局正就未来指引征询公众意见，意见征集期为45天。

Senator Amy Klobuchar on the announcement that Operation Metro Surge will end | CNN Politics

Published 9:14 PM EST, Thu February 12, 2026 / CNN

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar joins Anderson to discuss ICE leaving Minneapolis after two months.

3:52 • Source: CNN

Latest News from CNN Politics 15 videos

Video Ad Feedback

Senator Amy Klobuchar on the announcement that Operation Metro Surge will end

3:52

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Why even some conservatives are now calling on AG Pam Bondi to step down

9:52

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

US energy secretary describes ‘tremendous’ cooperation with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez

8:33

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

NYT’s David French warns Trump and allies may interfere in midterms: ‘Don’t call it just bluster’

5:50

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Janet Mills launches ad hitting Susan Collins as ‘always concerned, but never courageous’ in key Maine Senate contest

2:44

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

The Odds: Can Republican Susan Collins hold onto her US Senate seat in Maine?

2:59

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Homan announces end to immigration operation in Minnesota

2:33

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

“We are trusting in the justice system”: US veteran deported to Jamaica speaks to CNN

3:40

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

‘You have to take a stand’ Democratic congresswoman pushes for ICE guardrails, as DHS shutdown looms

3:24

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

‘This is not a reality TV show’ Democratic congresswoman pushes for Clinton depositions to be videotaped only

6:25

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Former Police Detective says the mask worn by the suspect in Nancy Guthrie’s Disappearance is a key ‘error’

0:48

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Former FBI Assistant Director: Nancy Guthrie investigators ‘aren’t as far along as I thought they were’

1:33

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Ana Navarro: I credit MAGA for defying Trump on Epstein files

03:17

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

Tina Brown’s name is in the Epstein Files, and she wants it on a T-shirt

2:14

Now playing

• Source: CNN

Video Ad Feedback

‘Intimidation is the point’: Senator speaks out after attempted indictment

4:42

Now playing

• Source: CNN

See more videos

Gov. Wes Moore dismisses Trump’s

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/gov-moore-dismisses-trumps-not-worthy-snub-i-will-bow-down-to-no-one/

ICE tracking 1.6 million illegal aliens with deportation orders, chief says | Fox News

Immigration
Over 1.5 million illegal aliens with deportation orders in US, ICE director reveals

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said, ‘There’s 16,840 final orders at large in the state of Minnesota’

By Peter Pinedo
Fox News

Published February 12, 2026 8:38pm EST

Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons revealed that there are about 1.6 million illegal aliens with final deportation orders in the U.S., half of whom have criminal convictions.

During testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, Lyons said, “What we’re tracking right now is about 1.6 million final [deportation] orders in the United States, with approximately 800,000 of those having criminal convictions.”

Lyons clarified that these deportation orders have not been issued by ICE or the Department of Homeland Security. Rather, Lyons said the orders have come “through an immigration judge with the Department of Justice separate from Immigration Customs Enforcement.”

The director added that “there’s 16,840 final orders at large in the [state of Minnesota].”

ACTING ICE DIRECTOR DEFENDS AGENCY’S FOCUS ON TARGETING CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS, DETAILS THREAT TO AGENTS

Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons testifies during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 10, 2026. Lawmakers pressed Lyons on immigration enforcement tactics, body camera use and accountability following recent incidents in Minnesota.(Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Lyons revealed this during questioning by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. Lankford asked Lyons to communicate his gratitude to the men and women in immigration enforcement, commenting, “Two years ago, we had 10,000 people a day illegally crossing into the country, two years ago, 10,000 people a day not vetted, had no idea who they were.”

Lankford also pointed out that “70,000 people were estimated by the Biden administration to come in in 2024 that were special interest aliens that had a locational connection to terrorism.”

“But we had no idea who they were. They were allowed to be able to come into the country two years ago,” he lamented.

SCOOP: THOUSANDS OF VIOLENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARRESTED IN MINNESOTA AS ADMIN VOWS ‘WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN’

A U.S. Border Patrol agent watches over more than 2,000 migrants at a field processing center on December 18, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas.(John Moore/Getty Images)

This comes as ICE faces intense criticism from Democrats over their operations, especially in Minnesota, where two activists, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed in altercations with federal officers. Democrats have threatened defund DHS unless the agency changes its approach to enforcement.

Lankford remarked, “We’re losing perspective of what’s really happened.”

“The work that the men and women that work around you have done have stopped that chaos,” Lankford said to Lyons.

TRUMP DHS HAMMERS DEM GOVERNOR’S PORTAL TO TRACK ICE AGENTS: ‘ENCOURAGES VIOLENCE’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct an arrest in Chicago, Illinois, on January 26, 2025.(Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Handout via REUTERS)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“There are thousands of arrests that are happening in a day that are happening by the book,” he continued. “And what’s happening is [a group of protesters] that are protesting and agitating, and some of them running into churches and disturbing church services and saying, ‘It’s my First Amendment right to shut down your church during a service.’ And saying they’re a peaceful protester while they throw rocks at agents, it just gets old.”

Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6389135596112

哈马斯：若以色列继续袭击 抵抗力量不会交出武器 | 联合早报

发布时间：2026-02-13 07:40 | 来源：联合早报

哈马斯表明，只要以色列继续发动袭击，抵抗力量就不会交出武器。

新华社报道，哈马斯高级官员马尔达维星期四（2月12日）发表声明说，哈马斯致力于加沙地带停火，但以色列仿佛不受任何约束。除非以方遵守停火协议，否则抵抗力量不会交出武器。巴勒斯坦建国后，武器将交由国家统一管理。

哈马斯发言人卡西姆同日说，哈马斯尚未收到加沙停火斡旋方关于武器问题的完整提议，关注武器问题意在掩盖以方阻挠加沙停火第二阶段协议实施的现实。

今年1月，美国宣布启动结束加沙冲突“20点计划”的第二阶段，从停火转向加沙地带非军事化、技术官僚治理和重建。美方说，第二阶段将开始在加沙地带展开“全面非军事化”和重建，主要是解除“所有未经授权人员”的武装。

《以色列时报》10日报道，以色列国防军正在制订计划，准备在加沙地带“发动新攻势，以武力解除哈马斯的武装”。

据巴勒斯坦加沙地带卫生部门11日发布的数据，自加沙地带停火第一阶段协议生效以来，以军在加沙地带的行动已造成591人死亡、1578人受伤。

New judicial ethics code says judges may speak out against ‘illegitimate’ attacks | CNN Politics

Published Time: 2026-02-13T00:45:48.162Z
URL Source: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/12/politics/new-judicial-ethics-code-illegitimate-attacks

New judicial ethics code says judges may speak out against ‘illegitimate’ attacks
By [Tierney Sneed]
1 hr 27 min ago
PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 7:45 PM ET

A statue of blindfolded Justice, titled ‘Justice Delayed, Justice Denied’ hovers over the entrance of the Bryan United States Courthouse on September 26, 2025, in Alexandria, Virginia.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Newly released ethics guidance for the federal judiciary makes clear that judges can speak out against “illegitimate forms of criticism and attacks.”

The guidance comes as judges have been targeted with smears by President Donald Trump and allies for their rulings against administration policies. Judges have spoken publicly about violence or threats of violence faced by them, their families and their staff, including the 2020 fatal shooting of the son of a federal judge.

Judicial ethics rules, the new opinion says, “affirm that judges may choose to engage in a wide range of civic engagement activities, including speaking and writing on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence.”

“At the same time, judges should always exercise caution when expressing their personal views to preserve the integrity of the judiciary and to promote public confidence in the courts,” the new opinion says.

The ethics advisory cites the 2024 year-end report by Chief Justice John Roberts that emphasized judicial independence and said that violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to defy court orders all qualify as “illegitimate” forms of judicial attack.

Roberts himself issued a noteworthy statement last year, amid calls by Trump and his allies for the impeachment of a federal judge for his ruling against a Trump immigration initiative, that said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

More recently, the chief judge of the federal court in Minnesota wrote a pair of extraordinary letters to the appeals court that oversees him decrying how the Justice Department had handled a dispute over warrants it sought from his court for ICE protestors who disrupted a church service.

Gabe Roth, who leads the court reform group Fix the Court, praised the new ethics opinion in a statement.

“Though individuals are not called out by name, this is a strong rebuke of the Trump administration’s ‘war’ on the judiciary and comes one day after Attorney General Bondi denounced ‘liberal activist judges’ for taking part in ‘coordinated […] unlawful attack’ against President Trump’s ‘authority.’ Any judge who, in a measured manner, seeks to counter that nonsense would thus be ethically sound,” Roth said.

In court decisions, some judges have also pushed back at the administration’s hostility towards the judiciary. Fourth Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson – in a decision concerning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant the administration wrongly sent to an el Salvadorian prison – warned, “The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts.”

“Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate,” he wrote in the April opinion.

The new ethics language does not specifically point to the current environment. It instead leaned on past ethics commentary and said that “the Committee believes the Code and its previous advisory opinions leave room, in at least some circumstances, for the measured defense of judicial colleagues from illegitimate forms of criticism and attacks that risk undermining judicial independence or the rule of law, whether or not they rise to the level of persecution.”

The new opinion obliquely referenced the growing willingness of judges to speak to reporters without attribution, telling judges “that considerations of tone, context, and form should inform a judge’s assessment concerning the propriety of civic engagement and judicial speech in general—including speech not intended for public attribution to the judge.”

Judge blocks Trump administration from cutting $600 million in public health funds

February 13, 2026 2:28 AM UTC / Reuters

By Dietrich Knauth

节点运行失败

U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable on rural health, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

Feb 12 (Reuters) – A federal judge in Chicago temporarily blocked on Thursday the Trump administration from moving ahead with $600 million in cuts to public health grants in four states led by Democrats.

U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said that California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota were likely to succeed in a lawsuit alleging the funding cuts were meant to retaliate against the states for their perceived opposition to federal immigration enforcement policies.

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Shah’s order prevents the federal government from moving ahead with the disputed funding cuts for 14 days while the lawsuit continues to play out in court.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, sought to protect grant funding, administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that is used to monitor health threats, respond to disease outbreaks, and plan for public health emergencies.

The affected programs include those supporting HIV prevention and surveillance.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CDC spending, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to withhold funding from Democratic-led states, though the cuts have been blocked by lower court judges.

A judge last month temporarily stopped the Trump administration from freezing five Democratic-led states’ access to more than $10 billion of federal funds for childcare and family assistance based on what the administration said were concerns about fraud.

Trump last month warned so-called “sanctuary cities or states” that he would begin halting funding in February, saying their policies foment “fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come.”

Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Christian Schmollinger

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.