Federal judge cites 'constitutional overreach' in Minnesota in ruling against Trump

The fallout of Donald Trump's massive deportation operation continues to spread across the legal system, with a judge in a deep-red state citing the situation in Minnesota in an immigration ruling against the Trump administration.

On Thursday, Politico's Kyle Cheney highlighted a new ruling from federal Judge Joseph R. Goodwin for the Southern District of West Virginia, calling for a detained immigrant to be released after they filed a habeas petition alleging that they had been held for multiple days without a hearing. Goodwin's ruling compared this to "holding a citizen on a criminal charge without an arraignment or bail hearing," a delay that "the Constitution does not tolerate."

In a footnote, Goodwin stressed that petitioners do not only have Constitutional protection while filing a suit, something he felt compelled to note given the current "national, political and legal context."

"Of course, the Petitioner does not have constitutional protections only when he files a habeas petition," Goodwin explained. "That distinction — that constitutional rights do not only protect persons when a lawsuit has been filed — is an important one. It is because of the many lawsuits surrounding ICE actions (including arrest, detention, and other enforcement action) that I cannot view this case outside of the national, political, and legal context. Across the country, federal immigration enforcement operations have sparked controversy and concerns about constitutional overreach. In Minneapolis, federal immigration and border agents have been involved in multiple fatal shootings of U.S. citizens. Those events have prompted widespread protest and calls for accountability."

"Judges around the country are eyeing what's happening in Minnesota," Cheney wrote in a post to social media about the decision. "In a ruling freeing a detained immigrant here, Judge Goodwin of West Virginia said he couldn't ignore the crises in MN."

Goodwin was appointed to his current position in 1995 by former President Bill Clinton. Despite being a Democrat appointee, he has recently ruled in ways favorable to Republicans, such as in 2022, when he ruled that a ban on firearms without serial numbers for tracking was unconstitutional.

West Virginia is often considered one of the most conservative states in the U.S., breaking for Trump in the 2024 election by nearly 42 points.

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