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Operation Metro Surge: Federal court impact
During an interview with FOX 9 Investigator Paul Blume, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz details the unprecedented strain placed on Minnesota’s federal courts during the months-long immigration enforcement of Operation Metro Surge.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - You can read a portion of Schiltz’s interview with FOX 9 Investigator Paul Blume below.
The transcript has been slightly edited for grammar, clarity and brevity.
On being overwhelmed by ICE
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "Have you had the opportunity to reflect, and would you share some of your thoughts on the intensity of Operation Metro Surge on the courts, particularly, the judges and court staff?"
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "So, at the height of Operation Metro Surge, we were open basically as a court from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. And I was entering orders sometimes at 10 or 10:30 p.m. at night, and sometimes at 8 [in the morning]. And I mean, we were all just overwhelmed with the number of cases."
On unprecedented flood of habeas petitions
The flood of litigation involved alien habeas cases. They are lawsuits filed by people who are not citizens and claim they are being unlawfully detained.
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "In the last year of the Biden administration, we had 12 such cases for the whole year, 2024. In the first year of the second Trump administration, we had 130 in 2025. In the first three months of this year, we have had 1,111. So about 100 times more than all of 2024 we have had in just three months. So, we have been busy."
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "Do you believe that is an unprecedented explosion?"
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "As far as I know. I was out at a [recent] meeting of the chief judges of the United States, that is the chief judge of each of the 94 district courts around the country and the ones I have spoken to, nobody has ever heard of anything like it, so I think it is unprecedented."
On ICE moving detainees within hours
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "Did this court have to open itself to making so many rulings so quickly? Was that mandated?"
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "Yes. You know, we don't have discretionary jurisdiction. Like the Supreme Court of the United States, they pretty much get to decide whether they want to take a case or not. We don't have that luxury. If you come into our court and you file a complaint, we have to decide it. We have to do something with it. So, we didn't have any choice about that. In terms of timing, I mean… There is nothing that would have kept us from waiting a week, or two weeks, or three weeks, or three months from ruling on a petition. But remember what these were. These were lawsuits brought by people who were saying that their detention was illegal, that the government didn't have the legal right to hold them in custody, and that they should be let out. And I mean, if that was you, and you were sitting in a detention facility somewhere, what would you think if the judge said ‘well, I will get around to your case in three or four months?’ You would say, ‘Well, wait a minute, I am detained illegally right now.’
"That was one of the most difficult things about this for us judges is that, as I said, these petitions were literally being filed from early morning until late at night. If I went to a movie for two hours or just wasn't near my iPhone for two hours, that could be the difference between somebody being put on a plane and sent to Texas or somewhere else, and someone being ordered released and returning to their family that night. So, there was kind of an emotional toll as well as just the work and the time. That is, anytime you were doing something that was not work, you kind of felt guilty, like you should be working, because somebody might really be harmed by the fact that I went to the movie, or I went out to dinner with friends."
On rights of non-citizens
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "We hear from some of the [court’s] critics who tell us, ‘These people are here in our country illegally.’ But why are these people, who [might be] here illegally at that moment, why or how are they entitled to the same constitutional rights of a habeas filing?
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "Well, I can't really get into it too much because I am not supposed to discuss cases or legal issues that come before me. All I can tell you is the undisputed fact that the Supreme Court has held that people who are in our country, if you are a human being, and you are in the country, you have certain constitutional rights even if you are not a citizen."
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "Did this court have an advanced sense of how to prepare for what we saw in January [in terms of the caseload]?"
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "I mean, the answer is just no. We, like anybody, we judges read the news, and we knew that the surge was being planned, but we don't, you just don't know the impact until it happens. So, what happened in Minneapolis, in the Twin Cities, I should say, was pretty much unprecedented. So, we didn't have a lot. There's been some enhanced enforcement actions in some cities but nothing on the scale. So, we just didn't know what would happen until the cases hit us."
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "Did the court ever view the situation as a constitutional crisis in any way?"
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "It's hard for me to answer because I would have to characterize the legal views of our judges and I can't do that except in my orders."
On violations of court orders
During Operation Metro Surge, Chief Judge Schiltz issued multiple orders that criticized how cases were handled by ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "You were critical in some of your orders, including one, where you wrote ‘ICE had likely violated more court orders in the month of January than most all federal agencies had potentially in their entire existence.’ Now, a couple of months later, can you reflect on that and why you put that in a public order?"
CHIEF JUDGE SCHILTZ: "I am pretty limited in what I can say. I can say though that it is a pretty unusual thing for anybody to violate the order of a federal judge. I have been a federal judge for 20 years and I might have an order or two not complied with in a year, and never by the federal government. So, the situation that we confronted was highly unusual.
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FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "You were critical about the lack of resources and infrastructure in place to handle the mass deportation campaign. How did you reach that conclusion?"
CHIEF JUDGE SCHILTZ: "Well, how did I reach the conclusion? I know who's employed by our U.S. Attorney's Office. I know how many attorneys are in there. I know what their normal workload is. I know the workload they were dealing with, and I can do the math is basically how I knew that. I mean, how everybody knew that."
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: Did [the loss of federal prosecutors] complicate what was going on in the courts?"
CHIEF JUDGE SCHILTZ: "Yeah, we lost a lot of really good attorneys. And it is never good for anybody when it is not good for the judges. It is not good for the federal government. It's not good for anyone when good attorneys leave. So, we did lose a lot of good attorneys and it made it harder for all of us to get the work done."
On Court of Appeals ruling
In March, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Trump Administration can lawfully hold many ICE detainees without bond. Federal judges in Minnesota had consistently ruled that those detentions were unlawful.
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "With the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in March on habeas and mandatory detention during the deportation process, we have now heard from the Department of Justice that this district’s judges were ‘wrong.’ How do you respond?
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "Well, so ‘wrong’ is not a word that we really use to discuss rulings… So, they disagreed with our rulings. They are the bosses, they are the appellate court, we're the trial courts, and now we're complying with the Eighth Circuit’s ruling. So yeah, the Eighth Circuit, a three-judge panel, disagreed with the judges here on a two-to-one vote. But their word is, actually the Supreme Court's word is final, but for now, their word is final."
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "Do you think this will eventually get to the Supreme Court?"
CHIEF JUDGE PATRICK SCHILTZ: "Yeah, I don't have any doubt about it."
FOX 9 INVESTIGATORS: "How long do you think it will take to unravel what took place in the courts during Operation Metro Surge?"
CHIEF JUDGE SCHILTZ: "It will literally, if you are talking about the litigation caused by Operation Metro Surge, we will be dealing with it for years.