Federal attorneys must return to court soon after a judge questioned whether the government’s description of legal access for detainees matches what human-rights lawyers say happens in practice at a Minnesota ICE facility. U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel said Friday that she expects the Justice Department and the plaintiffs’ lawyers to reach at least a partial agreement by 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, or she will issue her order the following day. She did not indicate how she would rule if the parties cannot narrow the dispute.
Brasel’s comments came during a hearing over a case brought by human-rights lawyers seeking to ensure detained people can effectively access legal counsel while facing possible deportation. Attorneys for the federal government argued that the facility provides adequate access, while the plaintiffs said detainees lack meaningful opportunities to meet with lawyers and communicate freely.
At the center of the hearing was what “reasonable access” should mean for people held at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on the edge of Minneapolis, which is used for ICE operations and has been the site of frequent protests. Brasel told Justice Department attorney Christina Parascandola that there appeared to be a “very wide factual disconnect” between the human-rights lawyers’ allegations and the government’s depiction of conditions at what the government described as only a temporary holding facility.
Attorney Jeffrey Dubner argued that people detained at the Minnesota facility are allowed to make phone calls but that ICE personnel are typically nearby, which he said undermines confidentiality and access to counsel. Parascandola, in contrast, said people held at the facility have access to counsel and unmonitored phone calls at any time and for as long as they need. She conceded during the hearing that she had never been at the facility.
Brasel said she found the government’s position difficult to accept, adding that she saw far more evidence in the case record supporting the plaintiffs’ account than supporting the government’s assurances. She said the “gap here is so enormous I don’t know how you’re going to close it,” and she urged continued efforts to narrow differences through mediation led by a retired judge, noting that some gaps had already been narrowed.
The judge also set the framework for future negotiations by pointing out that both sides agreed that “some degree of reasonable access” to legal counsel is constitutionally necessary. Their dispute, she said, focused on the details of what that access should look like in practice for detainees at the facility.
The hearing unfolded alongside broader political scrutiny of ICE detention conditions in Minnesota and elsewhere. The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building has been a frequent stop for protests, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison said in a statement Friday that conditions at the detention center continued to be poor. Morrison, a physician, said she learned during a visit Thursday night that the facility has no protocols in place to prevent the spread of measles to Minnesota from Texas, adding that at least two measles cases had been reported this week at a major ICE detention center in Texas.
Morrison said some Minnesota detainees, including families with children, have been sent to the Texas facility and that some have returned to Minnesota after courts intervened, including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father. She also criticized federal officials, saying it was “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,’” and she said she was stunned by what she described as the inability or unwillingness of federal agents to answer basic questions about operations and protocols.
Morrison said that even after a federal judge ruled Monday that members of Congress have the right to make unannounced visits to ICE facilities, agents attempted to deny her entry for nearly a half-hour and demanded that she leave before eventually letting her in. She said she was turned away on a prior attempt last month, when she visited with other Democratic Minnesota lawmakers, including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Angie Craig. Morrison said that after she was able to enter the facility last weekend, she was told that 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. In a statement, they said they had “heard countless reports that detainees are being held in unlivable conditions at Whipple” and that they believed the administration was hiding what they described as the truth. They also said they had reason to believe the federal government was ignoring due process and treating immigrants as political pawns rather than people.
Separately from the court fight, a man who posted a social media video 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, and that Lang was arrested a short distance away. The ice sculpture spelled out “Prosecute ICE,” and court records did not list an attorney who could comment for Lang. Lang was ordered to stay at least three blocks away from the Capitol after his first court appearance.
The AP report said Lang was drowned out by a large crowd last month when he tried to hold a small rally in Minneapolis in support of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The report also said Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping intervention for Jan. 6 defendants last year.