Eighth Circuit Suspends Inunction Related to Federal Immigration Enforcement in Minnesota

From the opinion by Judges Bobby Shepherd and David Stras in Tincher v. Noem:

The district court entered a preliminary injunction with respect to federal immigration-enforcement operations in Minnesota. The injunction is unlikely to survive the government’s … appeal, so we stay it pending a final decision in this case.

Six individuals who have “observed” and protested Operation Metro Surge, the ongoing immigration-enforcement effort in the Twin Cities, sued on behalf of “[a]ll persons who do or will in the future record, observe, and/or protest against” it. The preliminary injunction covers all of them and limits what federal agents who take part in the operation or respond to the protests can do while carrying out their official duties. Included in the district court’s order are prohibitions on “[r]etaliating against” anyone “engag[ed] in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” and stopping vehicles without “reasonable articulable suspicion that [the occupants] are forcibly obstructing or interfering with” immigration-enforcement activities.

For at least two reasons, the government has made “a strong showing” that its challenge to the injunction “is likely to succeed on the merits.” First, the grant of relief to such a broad uncertified class is just a universal injunction by another name. See Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025) (holding that “federal courts lack authority to issue them”). Even if “courts may issue temporary relief to a putative class,” this one has no chance of getting certified. A.A.R.P. v. Trump (2025). And overlooking the difficulties of certification, as the Supreme Court did in A.A.R.P., is not necessary “to preserve our jurisdiction.” …

We accessed and viewed the same videos the district court did. What they show is observers and protestors engaging in a wide range of conduct, some of it peaceful but much of it not. They also show federal agents responding in various ways. Even the named plaintiffs’ claims involve different conduct, by different officers, at different times, in different places, in response to different behavior. These differences mean that there are no “questions of law or fact common to the class” that would allow the court to decide all their claims in “one stroke.”

Second, in addition to being too broad, the injunction is too vague…. [A]n injunction must “state its terms specifically” and “describe in reasonable detail … the act or acts restrained or required” …. Directions not to “[r]etaliat[e] against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” or “[s]top[ ] or detain[ ] drivers … where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion” are simply commands to “obey the law,” which are “not specific enough.” Daniels v. Woodbury County (8th Cir. 1984) (explaining that such injunctions do not provide “a clear idea of what conduct is prohibited”); see Sessler v. City of Davenport (8th Cir. 2021) (deciding that a prohibition on “restricting and limiting [the plaintiff’s] rights to peacefully share his message” would be “an obey-the-law injunction”); Elend v. Basham (11th Cir. 2006) (declining to order an injunction to “ensure there’s no violation of the First Amendment” because it would “merely command the [defendant] to obey the law”).

Even the provision that singles out the use of “pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools” requires federal agents to predict what the district court would consider “peaceful and unobstructive protest activity.” The videos underscore how difficult it would be for them to decide who has crossed the line: they show a fast-changing mix of peaceful and obstructive conduct, with many protestors getting in officers’ faces and blocking their vehicles as they conduct their activities, only for some of them to then rejoin the crowd and intermix with others who were merely recording and observing the scene. See Bernini v. City of St. Paul (8th Cir. 2012) (acknowledging “the practical dilemma faced by officers responsible for reacting to large group activity”). A wrong call could end in contempt, yet there is little in the order that constrains the district court’s power to impose it. See Schmidt v. Lessard (1974) (warning that “[t]he judicial contempt power is a potent weapon” that should not be “founded upon a decree too vague to be understood”). “[F]ederal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch,” CASA, and the structural injunction imposed here, given its breadth and vagueness, is too big a step in that direction.

The remaining considerations also favor granting a stay. “[M]ost critical[ly],” to the extent the injunction’s breadth and vagueness cause federal agents to hesitate in performing their lawful duties, it threatens to irreparably harm the government and undermine the public interest. On the other side of the scale, the risk of “substantial[ ] injur[y]” from staying the injunction is low when all it says is to follow the law….

Judge Raymond Gruender partly concurred, but dissented as to two items:

First, I do not believe the Government has made a “strong showing” that the district court erred in granting preliminary injunctive relief to plaintiffs’ putative class. Although certification of plaintiffs’ class under Rule 23 would be unlikely, the Supreme Court explained last term that courts “need not decide whether a [putative] class should be certified” to grant preliminary class-wide relief. See A.A.R.P. v. Trump (2025). I do not read the Court’s decision one month later in Trump v. CASA as abrogating that instruction. Although there may be tension between A.A.R.P. and CASA on the issue of putative class relief, we are not the court to resolve it, especially not on an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal. Therefore, I would not grant the Government’s motion on that basis.

Second, I would reject the Government’s motion and lift the administrative stay as to the portion of the district court’s injunction that prohibits Covered Federal Agents from “[u]sing pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity.”

That directive is not an improperly vague “obey the law” injunction and should not be stayed pending appeal. “Reading the injunction in the context of the facts and circumstance of this case,” the Government has not demonstrated that trained federal agents are unlikely to understand how to comply with an order not to “us[e] pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools” against persons “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity.” …