type: timeline_event
On March 10, 2026, The Washington Post published an investigation documenting how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers systematically defied federal court orders as immigrant arrests soared during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. The reporting provided granular detail on specific cases, including a 62-year-old dishwasher who had fled El Salvador decades ago with a valid work permit and temporary protected status who was nonetheless swept up in the operation.
The investigation came as the scale of judicial noncompliance was becoming clear: Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz had tallied 210 violations of court orders across 143 cases arising from Operation Metro Surge, writing that the court was "not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders."
A separate federal judge, Jerry W. Blackwell, had found that "the overwhelming majority" of ICE cases brought before him involved people lawfully present in the United States. ICE reported it had arrested approximately 3,000 people in the Minneapolis area since the start of the operation. More than 400 habeas corpus petitions had been filed challenging detentions in Minnesota in January alone.
Also on March 10, an MPR News report revealed that another judge had denied a temporary halt to alleged racially and ethnically biased ICE enforcement tactics but called the evidence "troubling." The Washington Post investigation and the concurrent MPR reporting together provided the most comprehensive public accounting to date of how the administration had treated court orders as obstacles rather than binding legal obligations during the enforcement surge.