Court blocks DOJ subpoenas to Minnesota officials in immigration probe
Federal Judge Patrick Schiltz, a President George W. Bush appointee, wrote that subpoenas to Minnesota state officials were part of an unconstitutional effort to harass or coerce political opponents.
Aysha BagchiA Minnesota federal court blocked the Trump administration's attempt to force Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other state officials to turn over information for a federal investigation into whether they committed a crime in their opposition to federal immigration enforcement.
Federal Judge Patrick Schiltz, an appointee of President George W. Bush based in Minnesota, wrote that the subpoenas' "dominant purpose" was to coerce the officials into helping the federal government enforce civil immigration laws and "to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so."
That purpose violates the 10th Amendment prohibition on the federal government commanding state officers to enforce federal regulatory efforts, or retaliating against those officers for refusing to do so, Schiltz concluded.
"Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action – particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take – is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use (of) the grand-jury process," Schiltz wrote in his opinion, which was unsealed June 22.
The subpoenas sought information about whether Democratic officials impeded immigration enforcement in their public resistance to the Trump administration's surge of thousands of agents to conduct deportation roundups.
The Justice Department wanted a wide range of information on policies and directives related to federal immigration operations.
"Today's ruling is a victory for the rule of law and our democracy," Walz said in a statement.
"The U.S. Justice Department is pursuing criminal investigations into the President's political opponents. This case was just one example of that, but we are seeing daily reminders of this administration's lawlessness – in Minnesota and around the country," the governor's statement said.
The Department of Homeland Security referred USA TODAY to the Justice Department, which said in a statement that it "takes the unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement operations extremely seriously and will continue to act in full compliance with the law to investigate these matters."
'Campaign to coerce state and local officials'
In concluding that the subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons, the judge wrote that the DOJ struggled to articulate "a single plausible investigatory justification" for the information it was seeking.
In addition, he said the Trump administration threatened and tried to punish local jurisdictions for their "sanctuary" policies, which involve refusing to support federal immigration enforcement.
President Trump directed his administration to withhold funds from those jurisdictions and threatened "RETRIBUTION" against Minnesota Democrats on social media, and a few days after the subpoenas were served, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi sent Walz a letter demanding Minnesota repeal its "sanctuary" policies, the judge noted.
"This course of events – in and of itself – establishes beyond reasonable dispute that the subpoenas were a part of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials in Minnesota to assist the Trump administration in its enforcement of immigration laws," Schiltz wrote.
Contributing: Reuters
This story has been updated with additional information.