Eighth Circuit Nullifies Judge’s Injunction Against Federal Immigration Surge in Minneapolis

We should not let pass that, on Monday, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit federal appeals court (two appointees of Bush-43 and one of Trump-45) stayed the injunction against federal immigration-law enforcement operations in Minneapolis.

As I noted last week, when the circuit issued an administrative stay, the injunction had been issued by Judge Kate M. Martinez, a Biden appointee, and it was deeply flawed: admonishing agents to refrain from actions the law already forbids and placing prior restraints against police actions likely to be valid under federal law.

That is essentially what the circuit concluded in extending the stay through the conclusion of its consideration of the merits of the Justice Department’s appeal (which effectively nullifies the injunction since the federal initiative, “Operation Metro Surge,” will surely be over by the time the appeal is concluded).

The circuit pointed out that judicial “commands to obey the law” are unnecessary and certainly not specific enough to put government agents on notice of what conduct is prohibited (beside the conduct everyone already knows is prohibited).

Further, the panel explained why Judge Menendez was being too vague in warning the agents not to use “pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools” if the targets were engaged in what the judge would deem “peaceful and unobtrusive protest activity.” As the circuit put it:

The videos underscore how difficult it would be for them to decide who has crossed the line: they show a fast-changing mix of peaceful and obstructive conduct, with many protestors getting in officers’ faces and blocking their vehicles as they conduct their activities, only for some of them to then rejoin the crowd and intermix with others who were merely recording and observing the scene. See Bernini v. City of St. Paul … (acknowledging “the practical dilemma faced by officers responsible for reacting to large group activity”). A wrong call could end in contempt, yet there is little in the order that constrains the district court’s power to impose it. See Schmidt v. Lessard [a 1974 Supreme Court ruling)] (warning that “[t]he judicial contempt power is a potent weapon” that should not be “founded upon a decree too vague to be understood” (citation omitted)).

On two points, the panel emphasized the Supreme Court’s decision last term in Trump v. CASA (June 26, 2025), which held that federal judges lack jurisdiction to issue “universal” or “nationwide” injunctions. The first dealt with Judge Menendez’s grant of relief to an uncertified class described as comprising “all persons who do or will in the future record, observe, and/or protest against” Operation Metro Surge. The panel rebuffed the lower court, pointing out that “the grant of relief to such a broad uncertified class is just a universal injunction by another name.”

The second dealt with Menendez’s attempt to micromanage ICE and the Border Patrol. The panel invoked CASA’s instruction: “Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch.”

To repeat what I said last week, to observe that a court has no business warning government officials not to violate the law does not mean the court has no important role to play. If federal agents have arguably violated the law, it is absolutely permissible to bring lawsuits alleging that these violations have caused concrete harm that is redressable by legal remedies.

Here, the progressive activists behind the suit were not seeking redress for actual harm that had occurred; they were seeking a prospective judicial order that would paralyze federal agents, rendering them unable to enforce immigration laws to which progressives object. That should have been a nonstarter.

Judges in the Eighth Circuit, mostly in the Minneapolis federal district court, are complaining that their dockets are exploding with immigration cases based on allegations of Trump administration excesses. Fair enough . . . but the dockets are also exploding because Democratic-appointed judges have signaled that they will entertain frivolous claims as if they were weighty ones.