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MINNEAPOLIS — <\/span>A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday on whether he should extend an order that protects Minnesota refugees who are lawfully in the U.S. from being arrested and deported.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge John Tunheim blocked the government from targeting these refugees last month, saying the plaintiffs in the case were likely to prevail on their claims \u201cthat their arrest and detention, and the policy that purports to justify them, are unlawful.\u201d His Jan. 28 temporary restraining order<\/a> will expire Feb. 25 unless he grants a more permanent preliminary injunction.<\/p>\n Refugee rights groups sued the federal government in January after the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in mid-December launched Operation PARRIS, an acronym for Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening.<\/p>\n It was billed as a \u201csweeping initiative\u201d to reexamine the cases of 5,600 Minnesota refugees who had not yet been granted permanent resident status, also known as green cards. The agencies cited fraud in public programs<\/a> in Minnesota as justification.<\/p>\n Operation PARRIS was part of the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown that targeted Minnesota, including the surge of thousands of federal officers into the state. Homeland Security said it was its largest immigration enforcement operation ever<\/a>. It also sparked mass protests after the shooting deaths of Renee Good<\/a> and Alex Pretti.<\/a> White House border czar Tom Homan announced last week<\/a> the surge was ending, though a small federal presence<\/a> would remain.<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges that ICE officers went door to door under Operation PARRIS arresting refugees and sending them to detention centers in Texas, without access to attorneys. Some were later released on the streets of Texas and left to find their own way back to Minnesota, they said.<\/p>\n The judge rejected the government’s claim that it had the legal right to arrest and detain refugees who haven’t obtained their green cards within a year of arriving in the U.S. He said that would be illogical and nonsensical, given that refugees can’t apply for permanent residency until they’ve been in the U.S. for a year.<\/p>\n Tunheim noted in his order, which applies only in Minnesota, that refugees are extensively vetted by multiple agencies before being resettled in the U.S. He wrote that none arrested in the operation had been deemed a danger to the community or a flight risk, nor had any been charged with crimes that could be grounds for deportation.<\/p>\n The judge cited several cases involving plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, including one man identified only as U.H.A., a refugee with no criminal history. He was admitted into the U.S. in 2024 and was arrested by ICE while driving to work on Jan. 18 this year. \u201cHe was pulled over, ordered out of his car, handcuffed, and detained, without a warrant or apparent justification,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n Tunheim stressed that the refugees impacted by his order were admitted into the U.S. because of persecution in their home countries. He prohibited further arrests under Operation PARRIS and ordered that all detainees still in custody from it be released and returned to Minnesota.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are not committing crimes on our streets, nor did they illegally cross the border. Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully \u2014 and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cAt its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty. We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n