Morning Note

A federal judge on Saturday denied Minnesota’s attempt to block the Trump administration from conducting ICE raids in the state. 

Judge Kate Menendez described the operations as a “necessary response to allegations of widespread fraud,” and ruled that Minnesota failed to show that Operation Metro Surge violates its sovereignty. She also blamed liberals for hindering the White House’s push to arrest criminal illegal immigrants by refusing to cooperate with federal officials. 

Attorney General Keith Ellison has “provided no metric by which to determine when lawful law enforcement becomes unlawful commandeering, simply arguing that the excesses of Operation Metro Surge are so extreme that the surge exceeds whatever line must exist,” Menendez wrote in the ruling.

This story shows that two ostensibly contradictory things can be true at once. ICE’s Minnesota operations have obviously not gone smoothly, but that does not mean Republicans are the plot’s bad guys. If Democrats had secured the border under Joe Biden and adhered to federal immigration laws once Donald Trump took office, none of this likely would have happened.

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