The Advocates for Human Rights and a Detained Woman File Class Action Over Access to Counsel at the Whipple Building

The Advocates for Human Rights v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Case No. 0:26-cv-749 (D. Minn.), opened on the complaint filing date shown on the court’s header stamp (filed 01/27/26). The plaintiffs are a Minneapolis nonprofit that represents detained immigrants and L.H.M., a St. Paul woman in removal proceedings who sues through a next friend and under initials. The defendants are DHS, ICE, the Federal Protective Service and their senior officials, sued in their official capacities.

What the complaint alleges

The complaint says Whipple had been, before the surge, a short-term holding site, and that this changed: it alleges the building had been “used exclusively for short-term holding (generally, periods under 12 hours)” and that “Defendants are now holding some detainees in Whipple for days at a time.” On access to counsel it alleges that “Defendants routinely transfer detainees out of state before they can speak with their attorneys,” and that agents told lawyers that no visitation “is or has ever been permitted at Whipple” – a statement the complaint calls false, because the building has rooms labeled “ERO Visitation” where attorneys had met clients for years.

What it asks for

L.H.M. seeks to represent a class defined as “All persons initially detained in Minnesota pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act.” The prayer for relief asks for class treatment, declarations of constitutional, statutory, INA, APA and Accardi violations, and a preliminary and permanent injunction against impeding attorney-client communication and against retaliation. A temporary restraining order motion and a class-certification motion followed on the docket within days; the next entry covers the Court’s ruling on the TRO motion.

Source discipline

The complaint’s individual detainee accounts use initials and are not reproduced here. Amnesty International is the pointer to this case (secondary); the complaint is the primary.

Related Entries

• 2026-02-12–judge-brasel-tro-whipple-building-access-to-counsel-72-hour-transfer-hold-one-hour-phone-access
• 2026-03-26–judge-brasel-preliminary-injunction-whipple-provisional-class-transfer-hold-eighth-circuit-appeal