Federal judges talk to one another; they compare procedures, discuss difficult points of law, and ask colleagues how they've handled unfamiliar problems. Nobody should manufacture a scandal out of routine judicial consultation.
Minnesota's federal judges, however, have now described something more organized during President Donald Trump's Operation Metro Surge, and the unanswered details deserve attention.
Judges held regular meetings and maintained running email discussions while immigration habeas petitions flooded the District of Minnesota. Court clerks created an informal spreadsheet identifying judges familiar with particular legal questions, and some judges developed templates for orders in cases presenting recurring disputes.
Seven judges participated in on-record interviews discussing how the court responded.
From Fox News:
"The idea of a running email chain involving a variety of cases — it strikes me as very weird and frankly unprecedented," Robert Luther III, a professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School whose work includes federal courts and judicial ethics, told Fox News Digital. Federal judges can and routinely do consult colleagues, Luther said, particularly about procedural or evidentiary questions. But each judge is ultimately responsible for independently deciding the cases assigned to them — a distinction Luther said makes the coordination significant.
The disclosures have also drawn criticism from the Trump administration on two fronts. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival accused the former chief judge who led the district during Metro Surge of "essentially conspiring with his judicial colleagues" to thwart federal immigration enforcement. The Justice Department (DOJ), meanwhile, questioned the decision by sitting judges to give extensive on-the-record interviews about their experience with the administration's immigration operation.
Current Chief U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud says each judge still independently decided every petition assigned to him or her. He also says the judges sometimes reached different conclusions on recurring legal questions. The numbers explain why the court wanted efficiency: Minnesota received just 12 immigrant-detainee habeas petitions in all of 2024, then 1,427 through August 2026.
Nobody should dismiss that workload. Court employees were reportedly working as long as 16 hours a day, seven days a week, during the heaviest period of the surge. A courthouse buried under more than a thousand similar petitions would be foolish not to develop procedures for moving cases efficiently.
The federal judiciary's own ethics rules also matter. Canon 3 expressly allows judges to consult other judges and court personnel who assist them in carrying out judicial responsibilities. So the mere existence of meetings, emails, or conversations proves very little by itself.
The harder question is what was inside those emails and templates. Administrative forms, scheduling language, and standard procedural orders are ordinary courthouse tools. Shared substantive reasoning about disputed legal questions in separately assigned cases would raise a more complicated issue.
George Mason law professor Robert Luther III drew essentially the same line, describing administrative templates as commonplace while saying substantive templates would be something quite different.
Tostrud hasn't released those internal materials, so outsiders can't answer the question. We know: judges communicated about recurring legal issues, a spreadsheet directed colleagues toward judges with expertise on particular questions, and templates existed. We don't know where procedural coordination stopped and substantive coordination began.
A separate issue involves the judges speaking publicly. Senior U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, who served as chief judge during the surge before taking senior status. July 1, described the episode as creating a grave threat to the rule of law. The Justice Department responded that judges who publicly commented on pending or related matters should consider whether recusal is appropriate.
From Fox News:
Seven of the district's judges spoke to the Times for Thursday's report, including former Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who sat for a 90-minute interview about the court's experience during Metro Surge. Schiltz declined to discuss ongoing cases, according to the Times, but described what happened in Minnesota's federal court as having "created a grave threat to the rule of law."
"It is remarkable that sitting federal judges are giving on-the-record interviews attacking this Administration's policies rather than ruling from the bench," a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "If judges followed the law in adjudicating cases, there wouldn't be an 'overwhelming' habeas caseload. Judges who have made public comments on pending or related matters should consider whether recusal is warranted going forward."
Judicial ethics prohibit public comment on the merits of pending or impending cases, although judges may explain court procedures and discuss the legal system and administration of justice.
Judge Nancy Brasel has defended the interviews as permissible discussion of judicial independence. The DOJ sees enough overlap with continuing immigration litigation to raise recusal concerns.
Minnesota's judges may ultimately have done nothing more troubling than improvise under an enormous workload. Their own rules permit consultation, and Tostrud insists each judge retained independent judgment. Greater transparency about what actually traveled through those email chains and templates would settle much of the controversy.
Until then, the most important part of this story remains the part nobody outside the courthouse has seen.