"Tsunami" of immigration detention cases strains U.S. Attorney's offices across America

As immigration sweeps and detentions have expanded in Minnesota and around the country, the work of justifying those detentions is overwhelming federal prosecutors, who are being forced to sideline a range of other criminal and civil cases in order to keep pace.

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota declared in a new brief filed in federal court that his staff faces "an enormous burden" and that a "flood" of immigration cases is negatively affecting his office's work.

"This office has been forced to shift its already limited resources from other pressing and important priorities," wrote U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel Rosen, who was only confirmed to his post last October.

"Paralegals are continuously working overtime. Lawyers are continuously working overtime," he wrote. "All this is happening while the MN-USAO Civil division is down 50%."

Minnesota is not alone. The Justice Department is deploying some civil attorneys to assist U.S. Attorney's offices across the nation, after those offices complained they are being crushed by a tidal wave of federal cases filed by immigrants challenging their detention, sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell CBS News.

The cases, known as "habeas corpus petitions," started spiking in September after a Justice Department-run immigration court made a sweeping determination that the government could essentially detain a large swath of immigrants indefinitely while their removal proceedings are pending. 

In response, immigration lawyers have flooded federal courts with requests for their clients to be released while they petition immigration judges for a bond hearing. In most cases, the government has been losing. By one count, the number of decisions that have been adverse to the Justice Department have skyrocketed – from nearly 100 in September to more than 600 by December, one source told CBS News.

The influx of cases is putting a major strain on U.S. Attorney's offices, many of which experienced a mass exodus over the past year and are still struggling to hire qualified replacements. In some offices with smaller numbers of civil litigators, prosecutors who normally handle criminal cases are being asked to take on some of the burden, sources say.

"We never thought it would be a tsunami," one official told CBS News, speaking anonymously in order to discuss internal Justice Department matters. Assistant U.S. attorneys who handle civil litigation "are exasperated," another official said.

Justin Simmons, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, made an urgent request last month to senior leaders in the Justice Department's Civil Division, saying the burden is unsustainable, one person familiar with the matter said. 

In his request, Justin Simmons asked the department to temporarily deploy between five and 10 lawyers from the Civil Division's Office of Immigration Litigation, an office that has already lost a huge number of attorneys. A spokesman for Simmons' office declined to comment.

Shortly after that, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys sent a note to the civil chiefs of all 93 U.S. Attorney's offices, asking them to provide data about the total number of pending immigration habeas cases as of January 26, 2026, according to another source. The note also asked for the total number of civil assistant U.S. attorneys since the beginning of fiscal year 2025 and how many are on board as of January 2026.

The offices facing the biggest burden are those whose districts are home to immigration detention facilities, sources said.

A Justice Department spokesperson told CBS News the administration is "complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law."

If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Government's obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldn't be an 'overwhelming' habeas caseload or concern over DHS following orders," the spokesperson said. "The level of illegal aliens currently detained is a direct result of this Administration's strong border security policies to keep the American people safe."

U.S. Attorney in Minnesota calls burden "enormous"

Rosen said the "enormous burden" of immigration petitions in Minnesota coincided with government cuts, and then a wave of resignations that drained his office of experienced attorneys after two people were shot and killed by federal agents as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the state.

The departures left the already-diminished office with as few as 17 assistant U.S. attorneys, according to sources inside the office — down from 70 during the Biden administration. 

At the same time, nearly 430 petitions were filed related to immigration arrests in January, according to court documents, in addition to more than 100 filed at the end of 2025. Immigration advocates and nonprofits have filed the motions on behalf of those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that have conducted the sweeping raids in Minnesota. 

Rosen added that his office is in "reactive mode" and has since ceased all affirmative civil enforcement. Officials thus are no longer filing any lawsuits on behalf of the federal government to enforce environmental regulations and civil rights protections, or to recover money from tax and insurance fraud, among other responsibilities.

The criminal division also plays a critical role in prosecuting cases related to narcotics, exploitation, child pornography and terrorism, as well as serving Native American reservations.

One area hit hard in the cuts: efforts to prosecute those behind the widening fraud scandal in Minnesota. Those fraud cases had been cited by the Trump administration as the pretext for sending thousands of federal agents to the Twin Cities earlier this year.

Former prosecutors Joe Thompson, Harry Jacobs, Daniel Bobier and Matthew Ebert — the four attorneys who had been leading the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud case, which was the first to drop in the massive Minnesota fraud scandal — have resigned and handed off the prosecution to relative newcomers to the office. 

Harry Jacobs, who was recently named head of the office's criminal division, was also involved in the prosecution of Vance Boelter, the man accused of assassinating former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.

Sources close to the attorneys who left have cited a variety of factors for the staff shakeup, including caseload management, structural issues within the office, the Trump administration's influence on the office and concerns related to Operation Metro Surge — the ongoing immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities that has led to thousands of arrests as well as repeated clashes with protesters. 

Ana Voss, the former head of the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota's civil division, is also among those to depart, sources previously told CBS News.

In a prior court filing, Minnesota's chief judge threatened to hold the acting head of ICE in contempt in connection with one of the detention cases. In his order, however, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz praised Voss in a footnote and acknowledged that she was doing her job to the best of her abilities despite the lack of cooperation by the Department of Homeland Security.

"The Court expresses its appreciation to attorney Ana Voss and her colleagues, who have struggled mightily to ensure that respondents comply with court orders despite the fact that respondents have failed to provide them with adequate resources," he wrote.

The strain on government lawyers was made vivid during one court hearing in a habeas corpus case earlier this week. In a remarkable scene, a federal judge questioned the government's handling of immigration cases, and ICE attorney Julie Le — who was assigned to assist the Justice Department in Minnesota — expressed exasperation.

"What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need," Le said, according to a transcript.

Le, who has been assigned more than 80 cases since last month, also suggested at one point that the judge hold her in contempt of court "so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep." 

Le has been removed from her posting at the Justice Department, the Associated Press reported.