A federal judge has struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to compel several Minnesota officials — including the state’s Democratic governor — to turn over information tied to a Justice Department immigration investigation, according to a court order released publicly on Monday.
U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, based in Minnesota, issued the ruling, dealing a significant blow to a federal probe that was launched in January at the peak of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
The Justice Department had issued subpoenas to various state and local government offices in an effort to determine whether Democratic officials had broken the law by publicly opposing and resisting the administration’s large-scale immigration enforcement effort, which involved deploying thousands of agents to detain migrants accused of being in the country illegally.
The investigation centered on whether that public opposition crossed a legal line and amounted to criminal interference with federal immigration enforcement activities.
