Minnesota courts on notice as Laken Riley Act, targeted ICE enforcements go into effect

The Laken Riley Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon, was the first legislative victory of his second term in office. The bipartisan bill widens the crimes for which an undocumented immigrant could be detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and held without bail.

That now includes lesser offenses such as burglary, theft, larceny and shoplifting, along with more serious crimes like assault of a law enforcement officer and serious bodily injury. And it’s already reverberating in Minnesota.

Mike Berger, the head of the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office, said his office learned one of their clients was detained by ICE while walking into the Government Center ahead of a court appearance recently. Berger said that while it’s only a single example, so far, it goes against the standard protocol for how ICE has operated in Minnesota in his 17 years as a public defender.

In the past, Berger said, ICE would put holds on defendants who were already in custody for serious offenses. “That always happens,” he said. “What the change is now is any [detention] that happens at the courthouse or government center is inherently going to be lower level offenses because these are folks that are out of custody.”

Berger said his office believes ICE agents will be tracking publicly available court calendars to try and detain defendants who are arriving for a criminal appearance.

A spokesperson for Hennepin County could not confirm that the ICE detainment happened on government property. Bill Ward, the head of the Minnesota Board of Public Defense, said his office is monitoring the situation but so far hasn’t seen anything out of the ordinary with ICE detainments.

Messages for comment left with ICE were not returned but an official memo released by the department earlier this month provided interim guidance for how the office would approach arrests in or near courthouses by trying to “reduce safety risks to the public, targeted alien(s), and ICE officers and agents.”

The memo notes that courthouses have security protocols already in place and using the courthouse gives ICE the ability to detain undocumented people at a specific time and location.

Legal experts on all sides are concerned that this type of ICE activity could undermine criminal justice because undocumented immigrants who are the victims of a crime or are accused of a crime but are fighting the charges could stop showing up to court.

“Having a judicial process where parties are able to be present in court is part of the constitutional process and how we expect courts to run,” said Robyn Meyer-Thompson, a supervising staff attorney with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “It’s part of our functioning society.”

Meyer-Thompson said her office has been advising anyone who is detained by ICE to not sign any paperwork that voluntarily waives their rights.

One of the biggest changes that happens when an undocumented immigrant is detained by ICE is the immigration proceedings are a civil motion. That means instead of the state needing to prove the defendant is a flight risk or risk to public safety, as they do in criminal proceedings, that burden falls on the individual who has been detained. It also means the defendant has no legal right to a public defender and, if they are released while their case is pending, they have to pay their entire bond.

In criminal court, every defendant is entitled to legal representation and often have to pay only 10% of their bond. Meyer-Thompson said her clients in immigration court are typically lower income and can encounter bonds of $15,000 which can be 25% of their annual income.

That’s where the expansion of the Laken Riley Act could have an impact.

“I think that is particularly concerning when individuals may end up not really being convicted of an offense but have just been charged with [a crime], could potentially be subject to mandatory detention,“ Meyer-Thompson said.

In Minnesota there are three ICE detention facilities connected to county jails in Freeborn County, Kandiyohi County and Sherburne County and all immigration proceedings for Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota take place at the Fort Snelling Immigration Court.

Meyer-Thompson said there are currently 42,000 pending immigration cases at Fort Snelling. Kathryn Mattingly, the press secretary for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, provided data showing that nationwide there were 3.6 million pending immigration cases at the end of fiscal year 2024.

Mattingly said any increase in cases submitted by the Department of Homeland Security stemming from the Laken Riley Act would be taken in stride by the Office for Immigration Review.

“We are prepared to hear the cases that DHS files with our immigration courts,” Mattingly said.

Undocumented immigrants have a right to seek release before an immigration judge on any number of grounds, including if they are of good moral character, have more than 10 years of physical presence in the United States, a fear of returning to their home country for a protected legal reason or they have a relative who will suffer hardship if they are removed from the country United States.

Meyer-Thompson noted that in Trump’s first term, her attorneys noticed that opposing council was less likely to come to legal agreements and instead litigated most issues. That created longer court cases and, in instances where one of their clients was being held without bond, they were often in custody for up to two years.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and a number of victim advocacy groups spoke out against the Laken Riley Act earlier this month and Moriarty said the passage of the bill is going to harm public safety and accountability.

“Active ICE presence at courthouses will deter victims and witnesses from participating in prosecutions and testifying at trial ... making it easier for people who have harmed our community to escape accountability when the people law enforcement and prosecutors rely on are too fearful to show up.”

Berger said the Public Defender’s Office will wait and see how the ramifications of the bill play out for their clients.

“Are we at the beginning of a change? Are we seeing something that is the future forward? We don’t know,” Berger said. “But it is definitely something that is different.”