Government must reach agreement on right to counsel for people at Minnesota ICE facility, judge says

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Attorneys for the federal government have until next Thursday to reach an agreement with human rights lawyers who are seeking to ensure the right to counsel for people detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Minnesota, a judge said Friday.

Advocates said people held at the facility on the edge of Minneapolis who face possible deportation are denied adequate access to lawyers, including in-person meetings. Attorney Jeffrey Dubner said detainees are allowed to make phone calls, but ICE personnel are typically nearby.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel told Justice Department attorney Christina Parascandola that there seemed to be a “very wide factual disconnect” between what the human rights lawyers allege and the government’s claims of adequate access at what ICE depicts as only a temporary holding facility.

Parascandola said people detained at the facility have access to counsel and unmonitored phone calls at any time and for as long as they need. She conceded she had never been there.

Brasel called her argument “a tough sell,” noting there was far more evidence in the case record to back up the plaintiffs’ claims than the government’s assurances.

“The gap here is so enormous I don’t know how you’re going to close it,” the judge said.

Rather than ruling on the spot, Brasel told both sides to keep meeting with a retired judge who’s mediating and who has helped narrow some of the gaps already. She noted at the start of the hearing that both sides agreed that “some degree of reasonable access” to legal counsel is constitutionally necessary but that they differed on the details of what that should look like.

If the sides don’t reach at least a partial agreement by 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, the judge said she’ll issue her order then. She didn’t specify which way she’d rule.

A member of Congress decries conditions at detention center

The facility is part of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, which is a center of ICE operations and has been the scene of frequent protests.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison, of Minnesota, said in a statement Friday that conditions at the detention center continue to be poor. The physician said she learned in her visit Thursday night that the facility has no protocols in place to prevent the spread of measles to Minnesota from Texas. At least two cases were reported at a major ICE detention center in Texas this week.

Some Minnesota detainees including families with children have been sent to the Texas facility, and some have returned to Minnesota after courts intervened, including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father.

“It’s abundantly clear that Whipple is not at all equipped to handle what the Trump Administration is doing with their cruel and chaotic ‘Operation Metro Surge,’” Morrison said in a statement. “I am stunned by the inability or unwillingness of the federal agents to answer some of the most basic questions about their operations and protocols.”

Even though a federal judge ruled Monday that members of Congress have the right to make unannounced visits to ICE facilities, Morrison said in a statement that agents attempted to deny her entry for nearly a half-hour and demanded that she leave before eventually letting her in.

On her first attempt last month, Morrison and fellow Minnesota Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Angie Craig were turned away.

After she was able to enter the facility last weekend, Morrison said no real medical care was being offered to people held there.

Craig and Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum said they were turned away despite the court order when they tried to visit the facility overnight.

“We have heard countless reports that detainees are being held in unlivable conditions at Whipple,” the two representatives said in a statement. “We have every reason to believe that this administration is once again lying through their teeth and trying to hide what we all know to be true — that they are ignoring due process and treating immigrants as political pawns, not people.”

Man charged with fel
ony for wrecking anti-ICE sculpture

A supporter of the immigration crackdown who posted a video on social media of himself kicking down an anti-ICE sculpture outside the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul was released from jail Friday after being charged with a felony count of damage to property.

Lt. Mike Lee, a spokesperson for the Minnesota State Patrol, said Capitol Security observed Jake Lang, 30, of Lake Worth, Florida, damaging the display Thursday afternoon. He was arrested a short distance away. The ice sculpture spelled out “Prosecute ICE.”

At his first court appearance, Lang was released pending trial but ordered to stay at least three blocks away from the Capitol. Court records don’t list an attorney who could comment on his behalf.

Lang was drowned out by a large crowd last month when he attempted to hold a small rally in Minneapolis in support of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping intervention on behalf of Jan. 6 defendants last year.