Last week, federal trial court Judge Kate Menendez issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting use of tear gas and other riot control weapons by ICE in Minneapolis. She found ICE was using them in violation of protestors’ 1A rights. She also prohibited ICE from violating protestors’ 4A rights by unlawful searches and seizures. Today, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the Trump regime an administrative stay of Menendez’s injunction. 1/ #LawFedi https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca8.113629/gov.uscourts.ca8.113629.00805436077.0_2.pdf
An administrative stay pauses a lower court’s order while the appeals court hears the substantive appeal. Supposedly, it does not indicate the appeals court’s views of the the merits. The Eighth Circuit’s order granting the stay is unsigned and gives no reason or context for it. 2/
The Eighth Circuit is notoriously right wing. It has the largest Republican-appointee majority of any federal appellate court. Trump appointed four of these, 2 of whom were rated “not qualified” by the ABA. https://ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/trump-judicial-nominations-preview-appeals-court-part-2/ 3/
See also https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/politics/trumps-appeals-court-judges.html. “…there is increasingly such a thing as a Trump judge. The president’s appointees voted to allow his policies to take effect 133 times and voted against them only 12 times. Ninety-two percent of their total votes were in favor of the administration. That figure far outstrips support for Mr. Trump’s agenda from appeals court judges appointed by other Republican presidents, and from Mr. Trump’s appointees to the district courts.” 4/
I have zero confidence in the Eighth Circuit or the Roberts Court meaningfully adjudicating the Minneapolis plaintiff-protesters’ claims that ICE in Minnesota is violating the 1st and 4th Amendments of U.S. Constitution, often by using violent and retaliatory tactics. 5/
There was no legal compulsion for the Eight Circuit today to administratively stay the trial judge’s temporary restraining order. Grant or withholding of an administrative stay is discretionary. But apparently the 8th Circuit is more concerned with giving permission to ICE continue marauding than with any effort to check it, however temporarily. 6/
Meanwhile, today in Minneapolis, federal agents appear to be pepper spraying a protester WHILE three agents are holding him down on the ground. 7/ https://www.startribune.com/ice-raids-minnesota/601546426
Heidi Li Feldman