A federal judge in Minnesota on Saturday said she would decline to immediately halt the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez instead means that the White House can continue its hardline immigration enforcement effort while a broader legal challenge continues, NBC News and other outlets reported.
Menendez denied Minnesota officials’ request for a temporary restraining order, even as she acknowledged what she described as “profound and even heartbreaking” consequences for communities in the state, the network reported.
But “those are not the only harms to be considered,” Menendez ruled, pointing to a ruling by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that “recently reiterated that entry or injunction barring the federal government from enforcing federal law imposes significant harm on the government.”
Lawyers for Minnesota argued that the Republican administration’s enforcement effort violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by illegally pressuring the state to change or abandon its immigration policies and bend to the will of the federal government, according to NBC News.
Menendez said those arguments, at least at this point, were not strong enough to justify blocking the operation, the network reported.
Minnesota was plunged into unrest, and the rest of the nation followed with protests, after federal agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis last week.
The news came as protesters gathered on Boston Common on Saturday for an “ICE Out Everywhere” rally that organizers insisted would be nonviolent, and one day after a national day of action that saw a similar rally on Copley Place in the city.
