AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Trump administration continues to face public backlash over its ongoing immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Federal immigration agents have shot and killed two American citizens there, and events continue to move at a fast pace, including on the legal front. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas has been tracking that front and joins us now. Hi, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Hi there.
CHANG: So I want to start with the fatal shootings here, both of Renee Macklin Good and of Alex Pretti. The Justice Department has said it is not investigating Good's shooting, but what is happening exactly with Pretti's killing?
LUCAS: Right. So look, it's normal after a shooting that involves a law enforcement officer for the FBI and the Justice Department to conduct a civil rights investigation. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has said publicly he sees no need to do so in Good's killing, and the FBI is not conducting a civil rights investigation into Pretti's killing either. That's according to three sources who spoke with me on condition of anonymity, due to the sensitivity of this issue. Now, officials have said Homeland Security Investigations is leading the investigation, so not the FBI. That is atypical. You combine that with the fact that the DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other top administration officials have, without any evidence, called Pretti a domestic terrorist, and that is fueling concerns about the credibility of any DHS-led inquiry. Now, I spoke with this - spoke about this with David Lillehaug. He's a former U.S. attorney from Minnesota and a former state Supreme Court judge. Here's what he said.
DAVID LILLEHAUG: Well, I hate to say it, but it sounds to me like the outcome is cooked. I mean, if you can't have an investigation, and you've got the secretary of Homeland Security and the personnel on the line of authority down saying nothing to see here, then it looks like we're not going to see anything.
CHANG: But wait a minute - I saw that the Department of Justice did announce a number of arrests in Minnesota yesterday, arrests that were connected to the protests, right? What can you tell us about those arrests?
LUCAS: Well, Attorney General Pam Bondi said 16 people had been arrested. She called them rioters. I reviewed the court filings for some of these cases. Most, if not all, of the people who were arrested are facing a charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer. The cases kind of run the spectrum. In one, the defendant allegedly pepper-sprayed a Customs and Border Protection vehicle and officers. But then in a different case, court papers say a woman was - who was protesting, allegedly spat on two CBP officers. And then during her arrest, another officer jammed a finger, which court papers say didn't require medical attention. So runs the gamut. The defendants have only been charged by criminal complaint at this point, and I think it bears watching how grand juries in Minnesota respond when prosecutors there try to indict these folks. And I say that because we saw grand juries here in D.C. refuse to indict defendants in some instances during the federal surge last summer here.
CHANG: Yeah. Let's talk about that because one other thing we saw during the federal surge in D.C. were judges expressing frustration at times with the federal government. Are we seeing anything like that with courts in Minnesota?
LUCAS: There is definitely frustration, yes. One clear example of that is there's been a very large number of what's known as habeas petitions, so cases brought by immigrants who say they have been unlawfully arrested. And they are challenging their detention and, in a lot of cases in Minnesota right now, winning. Last night, the Minnesota Federal Court's Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz - he's a George W. Bush appointee - he issued an order that really took the government to task. The judge identified and documented 96 court orders that he said ICE had violated in 74 cases since January 1. Judge Schiltz said that number is certainly understated, and he said, quote, "ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence," end quote. He said the list, which is four pages long, should give pause to anyone who cares about the rule of law, regardless of their political beliefs.
CHANG: That is NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thank you so much, Ryan.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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