Trump Administration Cannot ‘Terrorize’ Minnesota’s Refugees With Arrests, U.S. Judge Rules | EUROtoday

Feb 27 (Reuters) – A federal decide on Friday mentioned he wouldn’t enable President Donald Trump’s administration to “terrorize” Minnesota’s 5,600 refugees by arresting and detaining them underneath a brand new coverage that “turns the refugees’ American Dream into a dystopian nightmare.”

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis made that assertion as he issued a preliminary injunction that prolonged an earlier, momentary order that blocked the administration from arresting or detaining refugees on the idea that they’d but to acquire lawful everlasting resident standing, or inexperienced playing cards.

The administration had sought to take action underneath a coverage adopted as a part of “Operation PARRIS,” a program introduced in January that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security billed as “a sweeping initiative” to reexamine 1000’s of refugee circumstances.

DHS on the time mentioned the preliminary focus of the initiative could be the roughly 5,600 refugees who had but to be given inexperienced playing cards in Minnesota, the location of a current immigration enforcement surge operation and advantages fraud scandal.

DHS didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Refugees from Africa, Asia and Latin America sued in a class-action lawsuit, arguing Trump’s administration was wrongly asserting that immigration regulation gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the ability to arrest any refugee who had not been granted a inexperienced card after a yr within the United States.

Tunheim, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, agreed, saying the administration’s coverage lacked authorization from Congress, raised constitutional issues and upended the promise of the Refugee Act of 1980 that refugees may “be given a chance at a new beginning in safety.”

He famous that by regulation, the refugees couldn’t acquire inexperienced playing cards till a yr had handed. Yet he mentioned the administration was claiming the ability to arrest them upon the 366th day of being lawfully admitted.

“The Court will not allow federal authorities to use a new and erroneous statutory interpretation to terrorize refugees who immigrated to this country under the promise that they would be welcomed and allowed to live in peace, far from the persecution they fled,” Tunheim wrote.

He dominated shortly after a bunch of refugees filed an identical however broader lawsuit in federal courtroom in Massachusetts in search of to problem the coverage’s enforcement nationwide.

Kimberly Grano, a lawyer for the Minnesota plaintiffs on the International Refugee Assistance Project, in an announcement hailed the ruling, saying the “refugees can now live their lives without fear that their own government will snatch them off the street and imprison them far from their loved ones.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in BostonEditing by Rod Nickel)