A federal judge on Friday, Feb. 20, delivered a rebuke of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s handling of court orders tied to immigration cases in Minnesota, saying the repeated claim of low staffing amid a high caseload “has worn out its welcome.”
In a nine-page order, U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino admonished the federal prosecutor office’s repeated failures to comply with court orders in immigration cases in recent weeks. Her criticism was presented in an order dismissing her contempt finding against military lawyer Matthew Isihara earlier this week over the U.S. government’s failure to return identification documents to an immigrant she previously ordered released. The documents have since been given back, court records said.
Provinzino described the case as indicative of broader problems within the office, calling it “painfully clear” that attorneys working on immigration cases lack basic resources and, sometimes, training.
The reprimand is perhaps the lengthiest and sharpest criticism yet of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota that’s buckling under a crippling caseload of illegal immigration cases while simultaneously grappling with a staffing crisis. More than 1,000 immigration-related cases, known as wrongful detention petitions, have been filed since the Trump administration deployed federal agents to Minnesota on Dec. 1 as part of Operation Metro Surge. The cases have continued to flood the courts as more than a dozen staffers within the prosecutor’s office have left since mid-January over directives from the Justice Department.
Provinzino, a former federal prosecutor in Minnesota’s office, said the court has been “exceedingly patient” with prosecutors amid the surge and granted “grace multiple times” as the U.S. Attorney’s Office struggles to keep up with court orders attached to immigration filings. But, she wrote, the office’s refrain of being understaffed amid ballooning cases “has worn out its welcome.”
“This Court would never allow a private attorney or litigant to rely on an ‘I’m too busy’ excuse to justify disobedience of a court order,” she said. “The Government is no different.”
The Minnesota Star Tribune asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for comment about Provinzino’s remarks. Daniel Rosen, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, previously called Provinzino’s contempt ruling a “lawless abuse of power.”
Provinzino wrote in her order that the U.S. government did not offer any acceptable defense for failing to provide identification documents for Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, the immigrant whose wrongful detention case led to her civil contempt ruling. Provinzino ordered attorneys for the U.S. government to appear in her courtroom Feb. 18 after discovering U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had released Soto Jimenez from a facility in El Paso, Texas, instead of Minnesota, with no way to return home and without his property.
