Minnesota judges continue to reject arrest warrants in ICE protests

MSN ^ | Jan. 23, 2026, 6:00 AM EST | Carol Leonnig , Alex Tabet and Jacob Soboroff

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Federal judges in Minnesota have several times in recent weeks rejected arrest warrants for people protesting a surge of immigration officers in that state, finding that federal agents do not have sufficient evidence that protesters assaulted officers or committed other crimes, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

In these sealed court proceedings, magistrate judges in the federal court in Minnesota have been deluged with requests from federal prosecutors to arrest and criminally charge protesters. The rise in requests comes amid increasing clashes between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after a surge of federal officers arriving in the state and in the wake of an ICE officer fatally shooting protester Renee Good on Jan. 7. But some prosecutors have fared poorly in establishing evidence of crime, said the people, who asked to speak confidentially about sensitive court proceedings.

It is exceedingly rare for judges to turn down investigators’ requests for search and arrest warrants or criminal complaints, since the standard of evidence required is so low; a federal agent or officer providing an account of events need only show a fair probability that the suspect engaged in the crime for an arrest warrant.

This spate of rejections in Minnesota would normally cause embarrassment for the U.S attorney’s office that submits the requests. But the Minnesota office has been in turmoil since the Justice Department’s decision not to investigate the officer who killed Good, which led to six senior prosecutors resigning, and more departures are expected.

In one case, a Minnesota-based judge rejected an effort to arrest and charge a protester after they had thrown an egg at a law enforcement vehicle, according to one person briefed on the case.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: compromisedjudges; domesticenemies; ice; judgewatch; minnesota; rebellion

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The J6 hostages were accused of "insurrection," but not a single one was charged or convicted of "insurrection," meaning there was no evidence to justify their arrests.

[God luvs America]

some were also arrested based on facial recognition for being outside the Capital, which many never entered...

[pierrem15]

Send in the Army already. This is ridiculous and the longer it goes on the more of this we'll see until ICE is no longer able to operate in any Dem controlled state.

BTW, the proper response of a military officer to a judge's order is to look at the signature and say, "Not in my chain of command."

[butlerweave]

There must be something you can do to judges that refuse to do their job

[ClearCase_guy]

“Look, I don’t know who this guy is. I don’t know what he did. But I’m going to find him innocent of everything eventually, so why are we wasting our time here? Arrest warrant denied.”

[FlingWingFlyer]

I see the far-left bozos have found themselves another greek Dipstick Court judgette. We ran out of Americans a long time ago. Foreign skanks wanting the judicial jobs Americans don’t want to take.

[TalBlack]

These judges are making martial law a necessity when they could just issue the warrants and ratf**k the arrests or cases later.

[Allegra]

[ClearCase_guy]

These judges are making martial law a necessity

I think that has to happen. I just don't know when "enough is enough" will be reached to move us into that next phase.

[butlerweave]

Will be the first people eaten by the Illegals

[falcon99]

There is, impeach them. But then that would require the spineless Republicans in Congress to actually do something to bring them back in line with the law.

[PGR88]

Corrupt Federal Judges and their twisted lawfare are one of the many tools of deep-state color-revolution “Democracy Inc.”

[Salman]

Trump is good, but we need Pinochet.

[Democrat = party of treason]

TRUMP HAS NO CHOICE, SEND IN THE MILITARY

[CopperTop]

3000 tyrants 1 mile away. We are here.

[dfwgator]

If Trump is worried about it looking bad, I would say it already looks pretty bad.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

TRUMP HAS NO CHOICE, SEND IN THE MILITARY

It's what they want to get John Podesta's civil war going.

The plan was postponed for four years when Democrats managed to steal the 2020 election.

In the meantime, they made a predictive-programming movie about a civil war to prepare their minions for what to do when the time came.

[MinorityRepublican]

Declare victory in Minneapolis in 30 days and then leave.

And then focus on the Midterms.

[KittyKares]

This is extraordinary! Minneapolis is not the least bit cooperative with federal law enforcement at various levels of their government. It does seem like an insurrection. If they get away with it, other sanctuary cities will feel free to do the same thing.

I feel badly for the Border Patrol who have to work under not only terrible weather conditions, but with insane protestors and officials fighting against them.

[mbrfl]

Impeachment, if we had enough votes in the Senate. Otherwise, there are some other options, that are novel or rarely used, that might be doable if the Semate filibuster is removed.