DHS launched Operation PARRIS, and ICE detained up to 150 Minnesota refugees without due process

On January 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a memo launching "Operation PARRIS" (Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening), directing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to "reexamine" the immigration status of 5,600 Minnesotans who entered the country legally as refugees but have not yet received green cards. DHS described the operation, an offshoot of the administration's broader Minnesota fraud investigation, as implementing "new vetting enhancements" -- fresh background checks, re-interviews, and merit reviews -- under a January 2025 executive order and a June 2025 proclamation on vetting screening. In a written statement, a DHS spokesperson said "Minnesota is ground zero for the war on fraud." Federal officials later said preparatory work began in mid-December 2025, but the operation was not publicly announced, and ICE detentions did not begin, until the January 9 memo.

Although the memo did not itself direct arrests, ICE moved quickly to detain people swept into the reexamination. Refugee-resettlement nonprofits and immigration attorneys in the Twin Cities said ICE agents in plain clothes and masks arrived at homes and workplaces across Minnesota with drawn weapons, telling families it was "just some paperwork that needs to be fixed" before immediately detaining the person named. St. Cloud resident Khadra Muse Mohamed, a single mother who arrived in the U.S. in 2024 after passing security screening, was pulled over by undercover ICE agents on January 10 -- one day after the operation began -- and separated from her seven-year-old son and disabled stepfather. The International Institute of Minnesota and Advocates for Human Rights estimated that at least 100 to roughly 150 refugees, many from Somalia, had been detained within the operation's first two weeks.

Those detained were transported to the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling and, within about 24 hours, on to detention facilities in Texas -- a relocation immigration attorneys said made it difficult for detainees to reach counsel or petition Minnesota judges before removal proceedings advanced. Families and attorneys reported no access to a lawyer and no clarification of the legal basis for detention during that window. A handful of detainees were later released, including an Eritrean single mother whose USCIS interviewer told her attorney he did not know why she had been detained and had no authority over her case; her own pending green-card application was approved while she was held.

This entry is distinct from the separately recorded February 18, 2026 USCIS/ICE memo that rescinded 2010 guidance to authorize detention of refugees who miss the one-year green-card filing deadline -- a later, separately sourced policy action that built on the reexamination Operation PARRIS launched here.

Updates

2026-01-28 — Federal judge issued TRO, ordered refugees released [5][6]

On January 28, 2026, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim granted a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from arresting or detaining Minnesota refugees under Operation PARRIS and ordering DHS to release, within five days, all refugees detained in Minnesota and those already transferred to out-of-state facilities. Tunheim wrote that refugees have "a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause."

2026-02-09 — Judge upheld TRO, rejected DHS's statutory reinterpretation [5][6]

On February 9, 2026, Tunheim issued a follow-up ruling maintaining the halt, rejecting the administration's argument that the statute authorizing detention of refugees who "return" to DHS custody covered refugees never previously detained, and ordered the administration to report on the release status of refugees held under the operation.

2026-02-27 — Judge granted preliminary injunction, extended refugee protections [7][8]

On February 27, 2026, Judge Tunheim granted a classwide preliminary injunction extending Operation PARRIS's halt for the duration of the litigation, finding refugees likely to succeed on Refugee Act, due-process, Fourth Amendment, and Administrative Procedure Act claims. The order barred DHS from arresting or detaining the roughly 5,600 refugees in Minnesota awaiting green cards while the case proceeds and directed the release of refugees still held. Tunheim wrote that the government would not be permitted "to terrorize refugees who immigrated to this country under the promise that they would be welcomed."