Seven Minnesota federal judges went public about their behind-the-scenes coordination on immigration detention cases, and the Trump administration says the arrangement looks less like case management and more like organized resistance to federal enforcement.
A New York Times report published Thursday revealed that judges on Minnesota's federal bench used running email threads, regular meetings, an informal spreadsheet, and templates to handle a flood of habeas petitions filed during Operation Metro Surge. The judges defended the practice as necessary to manage an unprecedented caseload. The Department of Homeland Security's general counsel accused the court's former chief judge of "essentially conspiring with his judicial colleagues" to obstruct immigration enforcement.
The dispute cuts to a question that matters far beyond one district court in the Upper Midwest: when federal judges facing similar cases coordinate their approach, are they streamlining justice, or stacking the deck?
The numbers tell part of the story. In all of 2024, Minnesota's federal district court received 12 habeas petitions from detained immigrants. During the first three months of 2026, that number hit 1,116, compared with just two during the same window the year before. By August, the total had climbed to 1,427.
Court staff worked 16-hour days, seven days a week to process the incoming cases. The surge followed Operation Metro Surge, a federal immigration enforcement campaign that created waves of detention challenges across the district.
Former Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who led the court during the heaviest stretch, issued an order on January 28 accusing ICE of violating nearly 100 court orders in a single month. "ICE is not [a law] unto itself," he wrote. He later sat for a 90-minute interview with the New York Times, describing what happened in Minnesota's federal court as having "created a grave threat to the rule of law."
The Justice Department pushed back. A DOJ review of cases cited in Schiltz's January list found that in the "large majority," detainees were released on time and no violation occurred. In most remaining cases, the department said it ultimately complied with court orders despite missing an additional deadline.
That gap, between the judge's accusation and the department's findings, remains unresolved.
What drew sharper scrutiny was not the caseload itself but how the judges handled it. Court clerks created an informal spreadsheet showing which judges to consult on particular legal questions. Judges exchanged views through running email threads covering a variety of cases. They held regular meetings. And they developed templates for quickly issuing orders on recurring detention disputes.
Robert Luther III, a professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School who studies federal courts and judicial ethics, told Fox News Digital the arrangement raised serious concerns:
"The idea of a running email chain involving a variety of cases, it strikes me as very weird and frankly unprecedented."
Luther drew a sharp line between administrative coordination and substantive legal collaboration. Templates for scheduling or procedural housekeeping are "entirely appropriate and commonplace in federal courts," he said. But "templates for substantive matters, that seems like something altogether different."
The distinction matters. If judges were sharing procedural shortcuts, the coordination looks routine. If they were aligning on how to rule, on questions of law, on the scope of ICE's authority, on the rights of detained immigrants, the practice starts to resemble something closer to a coordinated legal strategy than independent adjudication.
Chief Judge Eric Tostrud, who now leads the district, rejected that characterization. He told Fox News Digital that each judge independently decided the merits of every petition assigned to them. Judges "reached different outcomes regarding other legal questions," he said, and their ability to communicate helped them resolve cases quickly and thoughtfully. But Tostrud declined to disclose the contents of the internal working materials, saying documents created by judges and court staff "are not public."
The Trump administration has faced repeated judicial resistance on immigration policy, from birthright citizenship orders to deportation procedures. But the Minnesota situation is different in kind. This is not one judge issuing a nationwide injunction. This is an entire bench organizing its internal operations around a single category of cases brought by one class of petitioners against one federal agency.
Seven of Minnesota's district judges spoke on the record to the New York Times for Thursday's report. That decision drew a pointed response from the Justice Department.
A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement:
"It is remarkable that sitting federal judges are giving on-the-record interviews attacking this Administration's policies rather than ruling from the bench. If judges followed the law in adjudicating cases, there wouldn't be an 'overwhelming' habeas caseload. Judges who have made public comments on pending or related matters should consider whether recusal is warranted going forward."
Federal judicial ethics rules generally prohibit judges from publicly commenting on the merits of pending or impending cases. But the rules do permit judges to explain court procedures and engage in broader discussion about the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice. The judges appear to believe their interviews fell on the permissible side of that line.
Judge Nancy Brasel, a Trump appointee, defended the decision directly. "We are allowed to speak out about judicial independence," she said. "And so we should, in order to keep it."
Luther, the law professor, was less persuaded. "Judges should be speaking through their judicial orders, not through their surrogates at The New York Times," he said.
The DOJ's recusal suggestion adds a procedural wrinkle. If judges who gave interviews were pressured to step aside, the already-strained court would lose experienced hands at the worst possible time, and the administration would face accusations of judge-shopping by intimidation. If the judges stay on, the administration will argue they have publicly prejudged the government's position.
DHS General Counsel James Percival went further than DOJ's measured statement, accusing Schiltz of "essentially conspiring with his judicial colleagues" to thwart federal immigration enforcement. Schiltz, who took senior status this summer, a form of semi-retirement, declined to discuss ongoing cases in his Times interview.
Minnesota is one front in a broader conflict between the Trump administration's immigration enforcement agenda and the federal judiciary. The DOJ has moved aggressively to clear massive immigration case backlogs through "mega" hearings and other procedural innovations. DHS has pursued removals through rarely used legal mechanisms. And federal judges, appointed by presidents of both parties, have repeatedly intervened to slow or block enforcement actions.
The Minnesota case stands out because the coordination was not hidden. The judges volunteered it. They sat for interviews. They described their email chains and spreadsheets on the record. Whether that transparency reflects confidence in the propriety of their conduct or a calculated public-relations campaign depends on where you sit.
What it does not answer is the core factual question Luther raised: were those templates and email threads about procedure, or about substance? Tostrud says the internal documents are not public. Until someone with authority compels disclosure, or the judges voluntarily release the materials, the public is left with competing characterizations and no evidence to evaluate.
Courts have also weighed in on the legal status of immigrants with various forms of protection, including cases involving Temporary Protected Status terminations and deportation challenges from individuals claiming active legal protections. Each case adds another thread to a legal fabric that is being woven in real time across dozens of federal courtrooms.
The administration's position is straightforward: enforce the law, remove people who are here illegally, and expect judges to apply statutes as written rather than organize collective resistance. The judges' position is that an extraordinary caseload required extraordinary coordination, and that each judge still ruled independently.
Both things may be true. But when a dozen habeas petitions a year becomes more than 1,400, and the bench responds with shared email threads, templates, and spreadsheets rather than simply assigning cases and letting each judge work alone, the burden falls on the court to show that coordination served efficiency, not ideology.
Judges who want the public to trust their independence might start by opening the documents they created to manage it.
