When Legal Status Isn't Enough

Geoff Bennett:

Minnesota is still dealing with the fallout from a massive monthslong federal immigration crackdown. Even though the number of agents in the state has dwindled, many immigrants remain fearful.

As special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, that includes those who entered the country legally.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

The so-called Operation Metro Surge was billed as an effort to remove the — quote — “worst of the worst” from Minnesota.

Tom Homan, White House Border Czar:

President Trump made a promise of mass deportation, and that’s what this country’s going to get.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

But as the operation ramped up in January, the Trump administration announced it was taking new steps to tighten even legal immigration. It launched Operation PARRIS, a reexamination of some 5,600 refugees who arrived legally in Minnesota, but hadn’t yet received their permanent residency, also known as a green card.

Within days, there were reports of refugees being arrested by agents at their homes or when they arrived at a local ICE office after receiving notices to appear. Refugees and advocates sued to block the enforcement.

Seo Gia Vang, Human Rights Activist:

Refugee are among the most care carefully screened groups entering this country. We are simply asking for promises to be kept.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

In late January, a federal government judge temporarily stopped agents from arresting and detaining refugees in Minnesota.

Jay, Refugee (through interpreter):

I didn’t think I would be targeted because I came to the U.S. lawfully.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Jay was admitted to the United States as a refugee late in 2024. We changed his name and aren’t showing his face because he fears for his safety. Before the judge’s ruling in January, Jay received a letter asking him to appear for an interview about his status.

So he took time off from work and showed up at the Whipple Federal Building right behind me just outside of Minneapolis. After hours of waiting, he was called forward, handcuffed, and led to a small room.

Jay (through interpreter):

They didn’t tell me why I was detained, just that my case would be processed quickly. I figured they thought I was a criminal, and once they found out that I wasn’t, they would let me go.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

But Jay wasn’t let go. Instead, he was flown to a detention facility in Texas, he says, with no real explanation.

Jay (through interpreter):

We slept on the floor. We didn’t change clothes. We didn’t take showers. There wasn’t enough food. There wasn’t enough water. It was very hard to keep track of day and night. The inside was horrible. People were just shouting.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

It was days before Jay spoke to a lawyer, whose main advice was not to sign any documents. More than a week after arriving in Texas, Jay got word that a judge ordered his release.

Jay (through interpreter):

Somebody brought a document for me to sign. I asked them, what is this? And I was told that it was a document indicating that I’m leaving the facility.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Did you sign it?

Jay (through interpreter):

Yes, I did sign it because I wasn’t handcuffed or shackled. I felt happy and hopeful to be released. I tried to read it, to understand it. I was hoping it wouldn’t hurt me. I tried to find the word deportation on the document, and it didn’t have that.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

All told, Jay spent 14 days in custody before he was released in Minnesota and reunited with his wife and daughters.

Jay (through interpreter):

From when I arrived in the U.S. until I was detained, life was great. After I was detained, all my hope became kind of dark. The most difficult thing was about my kids and my wife. My daughter didn’t know where I was. She said: “Why don’t you come home?”

I said: “I’m coming. I’m on my way.” I was just kind of tricking her the whole time.

Paschal Nwokocha, Immigration Attorney:

For those who have done what is asked of them, they should not be punished.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Paschal Nwokocha is an immigration attorney in Minneapolis. He says the crackdowns in Minnesota have left a mountain of litigation. By one count, more than 1,000 wrongful detention lawsuits were filed in federal court since December. That’s three times the total filed between 2016 and 2024.

Paschal Nwokocha:

It’s not just going after those who have criminal record. It’s just harassing anybody who looks like me, who looks like you, or who doesn’t fit the mode they have in mind.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Why do you suppose this is happening in the manner that it is?

Paschal Nwokocha:

I don’t know how else to say it that there is a concerted effort by the administration to define or to redefine the demographics of this country.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Now even those who already have permanent residency are finding a narrower path to U.S. citizenship.

Laura cooper, International Institute of Minnesota: They certainly are making the questions harder and more obscure.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Laura cooper is a retired law professor who teaches a class at the International Institute of Minnesota, helping immigrants prepare for the citizenship test. She’s been tracking both changes to the exam and the overall standards to become a citizen.

Laura cooper:

Good moral character is one of the requirements, understandably, for attaining citizenship. It used to be that if you had, for example, a vehicular violation, you paid your ticket and, when you applied for citizenship, you showed that you got a violation and you paid your ticket and that was it.

Now they have said that they will talk to people’s neighbors. So let’s say someone has a neighbor that thinks that this immigrant doesn’t cut his or her lawn properly or doesn’t shovel the snow in time. You wonder whether little things like that a neighbor could say, oh, these people are not good neighbors, they’re not meeting the standards of our community.

Woman:

These Minnesotans are our friends. They’re our neighbors. They’re our colleagues.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

Late last month, the federal judge extended his order protecting Minnesota’s refugees from being detained. It came days after the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo making it official policy that agents can look for and arrest refugees who’ve been in the country for a year, but do not yet have green cards.

Advocates said the move was a dramatic break from past policy.

Mevlude Akay Alp, International Refugee Assistance Project:

Everybody should be disturbed by the administration’s insistence that it has the right to indefinitely detain people who have legal status.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

But in a statement to the “News Hour,” a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it was — quote — “not novel or discretionary. It is a clear requirement in law. The alternative would be to allow fugitive aliens to run rampant through our country with zero oversight. We refuse to let that happen.”

DHS did not respond to broader questions about its enforcement efforts or changes to the citizenship process.

For his part, Jay remains fearful. If he’s arrested again and forced to return to the country he fled, he worries he could be imprisoned or killed.

Jay (through interpreter):

Nobody wants to leave their own country unless conditions are very difficult. They want to improve their lives and leave past trauma behind. So people need to understand that and have mercy on us. I will obey the law. I still want to apply for a green card and adjust my status.

If something worse comes and I don’t have a choice, I will accept it. I want my daughters to get a good education, so they don’t live the life I lived.

Fred de Sam Lazaro:

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Fred de Sam Lazaro in the Twin Cities.