Minnesota’s habeas docket shows courts using emergency procedures to keep custody disputes from dissolving into bureaucratic quicksand.

Habeas corpus litigation is not a phrase typically seen in headlines. It hummed in the background, outside a narrow band of practitioners. But this year in Minnesota has not been like most years. Federal judges are fielding a rapid rush of emergency petitions challenging immigration detention, often on compressed briefing schedules and with an additional, urgent overlay: keep detainees from being moved out of the district before the court can decide whether custody is lawful.

E. Michelle Drake of Berger Montague is in the thick of it, repeatedly appearing in Minnesota habeas matters. The pattern has been consistent: a petitioner is detained, counsel files immediately, the court orders an expedited response and frequently bars transfer, and the government is required to name the statute that supposedly authorizes continued custody—right now, not later.

Hassan v. Bondi and the limits of “detain first, inspect later”

On January 15, 2026, a habeas petition was filed in the District of Minnesota in Hassan v. Bondi, naming federal officials and the St. Paul Field Office leadership of ICE. The petitioner, a Somali national lawfully admitted as a refugee in 2024, argued that he could not be detained while he maintained legal refugee status and had not received the process required to terminate that status.

The court’s response was decisive. In a written order dated February 2, 2026, Judge Laura M. Provinzino granted the habeas petition and imposed a concrete timeline: the government was ordered to complete any adjustment-related “inspection” under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a)(1) by a stated deadline, and the order made clear that continued detention beyond that point was not authorized under the government’s cited statutory authority.

For lawyers who don’t practice in this area, the significance is less about the specific refugee provision than about the posture. The court treated detention as something that must be justified with specificity—not with general assertions of enforcement authority, and not with open-ended references to future administrative steps. The order’s structure—deadline, consequence, and required status report—reflected a district court trying to keep custody disputes from dissolving into bureaucratic quicksand.

Minnesota judges repeatedly block transfers to preserve jurisdiction

One reason these cases feel like emergency litigation is that transfer can turn the “right to review” into a mere concept. If a detainee is moved out of the district, lawyers can lose access, and courts can be forced into threshold fights over jurisdiction and the identity of the proper custodian. Minnesota judges have responded by issuing early, explicit transfer restraints.

A separate District of Minnesota habeas docket—also captioned Hassan v. Bondi— illustrates this approach. The court enjoined the government from moving the petitioner outside the state while the petition was pending and ordered the government to return the petitioner if a transfer had already occurred, expressly to avoid the risk that removal from the district would deprive the court of jurisdiction and to preserve attorney consultation.

This reflects a judicial recognition that, in a fast-moving detention system, “where” can be as outcome-determinative as “why,” and that habeas review becomes fragile if geography can be manipulated before a judge rules.

The docket fills: Astudillo Laica and the bond-hearing pathway

Not every Minnesota petition turns on refugee law. Some turn on a classic immigration-detention question: is detention mandatory under 8 U.S.C. § 1225, or discretionary under 8 U.S.C. § 1226, which generally carries the possibility of a bond hearing?

In Astudillo Laica v. Bondi, filed January 9, 2026, the petitioner sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 after being detained the day before. The government argued detention was mandatory under § 1225(b). The court disagreed, concluding § 1225(b) did not apply on the record presented and ordering the government to provide a bond hearing under § 1226(a) by a date certain, with release required if the government failed to do so. Drake was among Berger Montague counsel listed for the petitioner.

By ordering a bond hearing rather than simply issuing an unconditional release order, the court steered the dispute into a more structured procedural channel—one that forces the government to justify detention under the statutory scheme that contemplates individualized custody determinations.

Ahmed Omar and the consequences of non-response

Another telling Minnesota decision came in Ahmed Omar v. Bondi. There, Judge Donovan W. Frank granted the habeas petition and ordered immediate release after respondents missed the court’s deadline. The opinion explicitly declared the detention unlawful and directed the government to confirm release within three days.

Even without taking a position on the merits of the underlying enforcement initiative, the decision underscores a practical reality of the moment: courts are demanding prompt, documented justification for custody, and missed deadlines are not being treated as harmless in a context where each day of detention is itself the claimed injury.

Operation PARRIS: the move from individual writs to systemic challenge

The Minnesota litigation story widened into a broader, headline-driving case: U.H.A. v. Bondi, a putative class action challenging what plaintiffs describe as DHS/USCIS “Operation PARRIS”—an initiative focused on “reverification” of refugees in Minnesota who have not yet adjusted to lawful permanent resident status. Public summaries describe a campaign leading to arrests, detention, coercive interrogation, and transfers, including families, and a government claim in multiple cases that refugees past the one-year mark must be detained.

In U.H.A., the district court issued a temporary restraining order that, as described in the court’s order and related public summaries, enjoined further arrests/detentions of certain refugees in Minnesota on the theory that they had not yet adjusted status, and required releases of detained individuals.

The case also placed lawyers in the role of explaining, publicly, why this cluster of petitions is not simply about immigration discretion but about legal process and constitutional boundaries. A February 19 IRAP press release quotes Drake calling the arrests and detention of lawful refugees “cruel, wasteful, and illegal,” urging the court to convert temporary relief into a longer-lasting injunction.

More Minnesota habeas matters show the pace and scope

To appreciate the “volume” problem—why this is being discussed as a surge rather than a handful of isolated cases—it helps to point to additional Minnesota petitions that illustrate how rapidly these matters are being filed and decided.

Morales Ortiz v. Bondi (0:26-cv-00369): an emergency petition filed January 16, 2026, with the court ordering a rapid government response and temporarily restraining transfer out of the District of Minnesota.

Lopez de Rodriguez v. Bondi (0:26-cv-00905): petition filed January 30, 2026, with an expedited briefing schedule and a no-transfer order; later resolved through a stipulation of dismissal without prejudice.

Morales v. Bondi (0:26-cv-01069): petition filed February 5, 2026, docket activity suggests rapid briefing and termination within days—another example of how quickly courts are moving in this lane.

Caal v. Bondi (0:26-cv-01235): on February 17, 2026, Judge Provinzino granted habeas relief, declaring the petitioner not subject to mandatory detention under § 1225(b)(2) and ordering a bond redetermination hearing by a date certain, with release required if the government failed to provide the hearing.

Stepping back, this cluster suggests a court system trying to keep up with custody disputes that have become frequent, fact-sensitive, and extremely time-bound.

Berger Montague’s additional habeas work in Minnesota

Drake’s filings are also part of a broader footprint by Berger Montague in Minnesota habeas litigation. A public listing of the firm’s involvement in District of Minnesota habeas cases includes matters such as Vechar v. Bondi, Gumirov v. Bondi, Coque Tutasi v. Bondi, Yussuf v. Bondi, Medshel v. Bondi, Hashimi v. Bondi, Delgado Granado v. Bondi, Lapin v. Bondi, Mohamed v. Bondi, and Mejia-Medina v. Easterwood, among others.

The firm is not treating these petitions as one-off emergencies; it is participating in what looks like sustained, resource-intensive habeas practice in a district that has become an epicenter for immigration detention challenges.

Why this docket matters beyond immigration

The Minnesota habeas surge is notable not only because of the underlying policy disputes, but because it makes procedure the story, that is, beyond the heinous cruelty of this administration’s policy, which includes terrorizing citizens and non-citizens, violating several aspects of the constitution, brutality, and even death – not to put too fine a point on it. Three litigation trends stand out.

1) Habeas is operating like emergency injunctive practice

The repeated use of expedited response schedules, deadline-driven remedies, and no-transfer orders resembles the cadence of TRO litigation. In Astudillo Laica, the remedy was a bond hearing by a hard deadline; in Caal, it was a bond redetermination hearing by a set date, with release as the consequence of noncompliance; and in multiple dockets, courts restrain transfers to preserve jurisdiction and counsel access.

2) The statutory “hook” fight is back at center stage

Many of these petitions rise or fall on whether the government can correctly place the detainee under the right statute—mandatory detention provisions versus discretionary detention provisions that require individualized process. Minnesota opinions repeatedly turn on those classifications, with courts ordering bond hearings where the government’s “mandatory” theory does not fit.

3) Jurisdiction preservation is becoming a front-line tactic

The explicit concern that transfers could defeat meaningful review appears directly in Minnesota orders. Courts are no longer assuming that jurisdiction will “take care of itself” once a petition is filed; they are actively freezing the geography of detention to keep habeas review real rather than theoretical.

Finally, Minnesota’s experience is part of a national pattern. ProPublica’s habeas tracker describes a historic nationwide rise in immigration-related habeas petitions and identifies Minnesota as one of the places where filings have surged, reinforcing the view that what is happening in Minnesota is part of a broader enforcement-and-litigation cycle rather than a local anomaly.

What to watch: Whether U.H.A. converts temporary relief into a longer injunction and how compliance disputes play out; whether the government seeks appellate consolidation of recurring statutory questions; and whether this emergency-habeas posture spreads further as other districts confront similar detention surges.

Also, whether more firms step up and use their unique capabilities and resources to peacefully restore sanity and constitutionally mandated rights to the people who live here? Many are. And to them we ALL must be grateful.