A judge has barred federal immigration officers from arresting and detaining legally present refugees in Minnesota, handing the Trump administration a legal defeat in its aggressive immigration crackdown.  

     U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, in Minneapolis on Wednesday, issued a temporary restraining order that bars the arrest and detention of any Minnesota resident with refugee status as litigation on the issue continues.   The judge did not have the authority to bar immigration officers. 

     "They are not committing crimes on our streets, nor did they illegally cross the border," Tunheim wrote in his order.  "Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully -- and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries."

     The Trump administration has been conducting an aggressive immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have arrested thousands of people since December, attracting protests, which have been met with violence.

     Democrats and civil and immigration rights advocates have accused the agents of using excessive force and violating due process protections.  The order issued Wednesday comes in a lawsuit filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project against Operation PARRIS, an initiative launched Jan. 9 to re-examine the 5,600 pending refugee cases in Minnesota in a hunt for fraud and other possible crimes.

     IRAP said in its complaint, filed Saturday, that since the operation began, federal immigration agents have arrested and detained more than 100 of Minnesota's refugee population without warrants and often with violence.