Minnesotans’ civil rights suit against ICE hinges on standing battle

MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — A federal judge grappled heavily with standing Monday as Minnesotans sought to keep a constitutional violations class action against the Trump administration and immigration agents alive.

Represented mostly by the American Civil Liberties Union, the class of Minnesotans claims federal agents violated its First and Fourth Amendment rights during Operation Metro Surge and seeks a court order protecting constitutional activity and prohibiting excessive force and threats as retaliation.

In what has become a key defense for the government in many operation-related lawsuits, the Justice Department claims the surge ending makes the complaint moot, arguing legal action for injunctive relief — a cease of action — must prove impending or future harm.

“The plaintiffs have no alleged subsequent injuries in the five months that we have been in litigation,” Justice Department attorney Kathleen Jacobs said. “We can’t look to the future to say any future operation would require the same law enforcement presence.”

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez appeared heavily skeptical of the government’s motion to dismiss in court Monday, especially as the administration never admitted any wrongdoing or provided formal guarantees operations in Minnesota will not resume.

“You don’t have anything in the record that says ‘we won’t do it again, we can’t do it again.’ … ‘We won’t do these at-large arrests that we saw,’” the Joe Biden appointee said, noting a withdrawal of operations does little to prove there is no likelihood of recurrence.

Menendez said this “voluntary cessation” on behalf of the government may not be enough to meet the high bar of mootness.

“One way courts have determined it [won’t occur again] is express disavowal — the government condemns actions. If it is just, ‘we stopped,’ then mootness and standing is indistinguishable, and the voluntary cessation doctrine has no teeth,” she said.

Struggling to answer whether or not there was a concrete, official end to Operation Metro Surge, Jacobs pivoted, noting any future law enforcement operation in Minnesota would likely be completely different, with new guidelines and goals, and would require separate legal action.

The original case, filed back in December 2025, outlined constitutional violations of observers and bystanders by federal immigration agents. The ACLU claimed ICE agents had pepper-sprayed, intimidated and directed excessive force toward Minnesotans who were not the target of any enforcement operation.

The lead plaintiff is Susan Tincher, a 55-year-old Minneapolis resident who claims she was tackled, handcuffed and held in a cell for five hours by federal agents after she approached and asked if they were ICE officials.

Menendez initially granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs — though the Eighth Circuit later repealed that.

On Feb. 13, the class of Minnesotans filed an amended complaint, adding three journalists to the suit and over 100 declarations from community members regarding unconstitutional ICE activity — all claiming retaliation against those gathering information about and protesting federal immigration agents’ presence.

In court, Caitlinrose Fisher, attorney for the Minnesotans, said the government cannot be absolved from its clear constitutional violations simply because it voluntarily chooses to end an unlawful operation.

“We’re not aware of any case where the government just stops doing what it’s doing and the court says that’s enough for mootness,” Fisher said. “It has to be absolutely clear that they’re not going to come back. It’s the government’s burden to make that absolutely clear.”

While appearing mostly in line with the class of Minnesotans, Menendez did question the limits of standing for injunctive relief — noting it would be questionable to grant an injunction years down the line because of harms that were never repeated.

“Now that Operation Metro Surge is over and they’ve left and their officers are not engaging in unlawful arrests, the conduct that backs this complaint is overwhelmingly gone,” Menendez said.

While a vast majority of the claimed violations experienced by Minnesotans throughout the surge were alleviated when the operation ended, Menendez did note a few key instances likely to throw a wrench in the government’s effort to throw the case out.

One plaintiff claims an ICE agent told him he is being placed in a domestic terrorism database, and another declaration said someone and their spouse had their global entry suspended for “interfering” with federal law enforcement.

These injuries, Menendez noted, outlive any supposed end to the federal operation and could continue harming the individuals for years if proven true.

“These are allegations of ongoing harm as First Amendment retaliation. … They’re not mitigated by the reduction in officers on the ground because they’re ongoing despite the termination of the operation,” Menendez said, later showing frustration at the Justice Department’s unwillingness to clearly state those instances as ongoing harm that could impact mootness.

Menendez made clear her intention not to let withdrawal itself become a backdoor strategy to evade accountability — noting she would take the matter under heavy consideration before making a ruling.