A US federal district judge on Thursday ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide immigrant detainees in Minnesota’s Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building access to attorneys immediately, before they are transferred out of state.

US District Judge Nancy Brasel wrote that Whipple has “isolated” hundreds of detainees from their attorneys:

Plaintiffs…have presented substantial, specific evidence detailing these alleged violations of the United States Constitution. In response, Defendants offer threadbare declarations generally asserting, without examples or evidence, that ICE provides telephone access to counsel for noncitizens in its custody… The gulf between the parties’ evidence is simply too wide and too deep for Defendants to overcome.

Judge Brasel focused on a variety of factors that have essentially compounded to deprive detainees of their legal right to counsel. First, detainees are processed and transferred almost immediately and without notice, leaving attorneys with no way to know how long their clients will be at a given facility. Second, the phone lists provided at Whipple often do not contain information regarding which organizations provide legal services, and the phones are in an open area where conversations are overheard by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Third, attorneys have been physically prevented from entering Whipple because of the “chaos” that defendants argue will ensue if permitted entry. Finally, detainees at Whipple are disallowed from sending mail or email.

The temporary restraining order (TRO) emphasizes: “The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.” The judge’s TRO will remain in place for two weeks unless she decides to extend it at the next hearing.

The plaintiffs, noncitizen detainees and a nonpartisan nonprofit that represents noncitizens, filed their complaint back in January, alleging that the workings of The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, which houses dozens of immigrant detainees, are “now the epicenter of the systematic deprivation of fundamental constitutional and legal rights at the hands of the federal government.” Specifically, Whipple has erected too many barriers that make it nearly impossible for detainees to contact or confer with their attorneys.

An attorney who visited Whipple this week said that several men she spoke with said they had been arrested the day before and had not yet talked to an attorney. Another person said he did not even know who to call for legal help.

Notably, the Trump administration announced that it will be ending the immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota, reportedly following increased cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement. The order comes after the launch of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, which has deployed thousands of DHS agents to the Twin Cities.