ICE just arrested 4,000 criminal illegal aliens from Minnesota's streets – and a Biden-appointed judge wants to put the agents in prison for it.
Now a second federal judge is piling on, threatening imprisonment for DOJ officials who dared defend the men and women doing the work Tim Walz refused to do.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen walked into that courtroom and told Judge Jeffrey Bryan exactly what needed to be said.
Judge Jeffrey Bryan Threatened Imprisonment and Daniel Rosen Told Him He Was Wrong
Judge Bryan called in Rosen and top ICE officials Tuesday for a contempt hearing – not over criminals on the loose, not over fraud networks still stealing from Minnesota families, but because some previously detained illegal aliens didn't get their phones and wallets back fast enough.
Bryan made it clear that imprisonment of federal officials was on the table.
Rosen didn't flinch.
He told the court there "was no defiance, no disobedience" on the part of the Justice Department and that contempt was "far beyond anything that ought to be considered here today."
He was right.
Of the 28 cases Bryan cited, Rosen confirmed only five remained outstanding – and the government had already committed to compensating for any property lost through what he called "human error."
That's not contempt of court.
That's an agency executing the largest immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota history while managing an avalanche of lawsuits engineered by open-borders activists and their allies on the federal bench.
Bryan then lectured an ICE official for using the word "alien" – a term written directly into federal statute – insisting they were discussing "people… not space aliens."
That's the level of seriousness we're dealing with.
Operation Metro Surge Produced 4000 Arrests and Biden Judges Are Trying to Punish ICE for It
This wasn't a one-judge problem.
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz – a George W. Bush appointee – issued his own order last week threatening criminal contempt, declaring the court had never seen a case where judges had to threaten the government with contempt "again and again and again."
Operation Metro Surge put 3,000 federal agents into Minnesota and arrested 4,000 criminal illegal aliens – people DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described publicly as murderers, rapists, child pedophiles, and gang members with final deportation orders stretching back years.
The DOJ's Minnesota office was built for routine casework, not a simultaneous surge of 4,000 arrest-related court filings.
Federal attorneys quit in droves rather than defend the mission.
That's a staffing crisis the Biden bench helped manufacture – and is now using as a weapon against the agents who stayed.
Schlitz even admitted his own contempt list contained errors, describing it as "hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges."
Rosen's office had already documented those errors in detail.
This Is How the Left Stops Deportations Without Winning Elections
The open-borders left couldn't stop Operation Metro Surge at the ballot box.
They couldn't stop it through Tim Walz, who spent weeks complaining publicly before the Trump administration ended the operation on its own terms after 4,000 arrests.
So they're trying to stop the next one – and the one after that – by establishing a precedent that ICE agents and DOJ officials can be imprisoned for executing lawful federal immigration enforcement.
Biden judges threatening federal law enforcement with jail cells isn't a legal process.
It's a political strategy.
The pattern is nationwide – federal judges in California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and now Minnesota issuing contempt threats and sanctions against the men and women enforcing immigration law that has been on the books for decades.
The Supreme Court already stepped in on this once – staying a Boston federal judge's immigration injunction in a 6-3 ruling and then issuing a rare second order when that same judge defied them, with the Solicitor General calling it a "lawless act of defiance" of the Court's authority.
Rosen told Bryan the truth inside that courtroom Tuesday.
The Supreme Court has already shown it will shut these judges down. Bryan just put himself in the same line of fire.
Sources:
- Peter Pinedo, "Biden-appointed judge threatens jail for ICE officials in clash over Trump immigration crackdown," Fox News, March 4, 2026.
- "ICE Continues to Remove the Worst of the Worst from Minneapolis Streets as DHS Law Enforcement Marks 3,000 Arrests During Operation Metro Surge," Department of Homeland Security, January 19, 2026.
- "DHS Highlights Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested by ICE St. Paul," Department of Homeland Security, January 16, 2026.
- "Biden-appointed judge who slapped down Trump deportation policy previously rebuked by SCOTUS," Fox News, February 26, 2026.
- "Minnesota judge holds federal attorney in civil contempt, a first in Trump's second term," CNN, February 19, 2026.