THE ICE PROBLEMICE and Border Patrol in Minnesota − Accused of Violating 1st, 2nd, 4th and 10th Amendment Rights − Are Testing Whether the Constitution Can Survive
Chief Federal Judge Patrick Schiltz in Minnesota, criticizing ICE for acting as a “law unto itself,” accused the agency of failing to follow 96 court orders from 74 different immigration cases in a single month. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” he said. Legal scholars are especially worried about ongoing ICE violations of the First, Second, Fourth, and 10th amendments.
Forcibly entering homes without a judicial warrant. Arresting journalists who reported on protests. Defying dozens of federal orders. Killing U.S. citizens for noncompliance. Asking constitutionally protected observers this chilling question: “Have you not learned?”
This is daily life in Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge, ostensibly an immigration enforcement initiative, has become something more consequential: a constitutional stress test. Can constitutional protections withstand the actions of a federal government seemingly intent on aggressively violating the rule of law?
In Minneapolis, a city still reckoning with its own grim history of policing, the federal operation raises fundamental questions about law enforcement and the limits of executive power.
Legal scholars and civil rights advocates are especially worried about ongoing violations of the First, Second, Fourth and 10th amendments, as are other observers, including historians like us.
Catalog of Violations
First Amendment concerns stem from reports that agents from ICE – described by some scholars as a paramilitary force – and the Border Patrol have deployed excessive force as well as advanced surveillance methods on suspects, observers and journalists. When enforcement activity impedes the rights to assemble, document and criticize government action, that chills those rights, and the consequences extend beyond any single demonstration. These rights are not peripheral to democracy. They are central to it.
Second Amendment issues erupted following the fatal shooting of a legally armed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Highly placed administration officials claimed Americans could not bring firearms to protests, despite a long-standing interpretation that in most states, including Minnesota, a person who was legally permitted to carry a firearm could bring it to such events. The assertion was in fact contrary to the Trump administration’s support for gun rights.
Thanks to the videos flooding social media, Fourth Amendment concerns are the most familiar. Allegations include entering homes without warrants, stopping, intimidating and seizing legal observers, and detaining suspects by virtue of their appearance or accent. Those are clear violations of the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures, which were adopted to prevent the exercise of arbitrary government power.
Finally, the 10th Amendment lies at the heart of Minnesota’s legal cases against the federal government.
One lawsuit contests the federal government’s refusal to allow the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Another challenges efforts to pressure local governments into assisting federal immigration enforcement. These disputes implicate federalism itself – the constitutional division of authority between states and the federal government that is the foundation of the American system.
