US judge declines to halt immigration surge in Minnesota amid protests
Al Jazeera
Minneapolis mayor criticises judge’s ruling, calling the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown ‘an invasion’.
A judge in the United States has declined to order President Donald Trump’s administration to halt its immigration crackdown in Minnesota, amid mass protests over deadly shootings by federal agents in the US state.
US District Judge Kate Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
She said state authorities made a strong showing that immigration agents’ tactics, including shootings and evidence of racial profiling, were having “profound and even heartbreaking consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and Minnesotans”.
But Menendez wrote in her ruling that, “ultimately, the Court finds that the balance of harms does not decisively favor an injunction”.
The lawsuit seeks to block or rein in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation that sent thousands of immigration agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, sparking mass protests and leading to the killings of two US citizens by federal agents.
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