“To respond to this wave of habeas petitions, this Office has been forced to shift its already limited resources from other pressing and important priorities,” Rosen wrote in a declaration submitted to the appeals court. “The MN-USAO has canceled all [affirmative civil enforcement] work and any other affirmative priorities … and is operating in a reactive mode.”

Rosen, a Trump appointee confirmed by the Senate in October, said his office’s civil litigation team in his office is “down 50%” following a wave of resignations and departures at the start of Operation Metro Surge. Remaining attorneys, he said, are appearing daily for emergency hearings, often on nights, weekends, and holidays.

“The Court is setting deadlines within hours, including weekends and holidays. Paralegals are continuously working overtime. Lawyers are continuously working overtime,” Rosen wrote, adding that swift appellate intervention is “desperately needed.”

The Justice Department echoed those concerns in a filing submitted Thursday in the case at hand, Herrera Avila v. Bondi, urging the 8th Circuit to resolve the appeal on the briefs or, alternatively, to expedite oral argument. DOJ attorneys said the “crushing burden” of immigration litigation has forced U.S. attorney offices across the circuit to divert resources from “other critical priorities, including criminal matters.”

A significant part of the burden facing the federal government is the lack of clarity from federal circuit courts on the legality of the Trump administration’s indefinite detainment of illegal aliens detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. The 8th Circuit has a generally conservative ideological makeup, as the majority of its judges were appointed by Republican presidents. More recently, the appeals court sided with the Trump administration after a lower court temporarily limited ICE’s tactics for mitigating protests. It could soon have a chance to weigh in on the efforts by pro-immigration lawyers to stop deportations using the courts.

Immigration advocacy groups have so far been able to make the Trump administration appear as if it is losing the legal battle over its mandatory detention policies by following rinse-and-repeat patterns in district courts. In Minnesota, groups such as the American Immigration Council or the American Immigration Lawyers Association file a habeas petition to a federal judge, who more often than not grants temporary release to the detained immigration enforcement target.

The Trump administration’s legal justification for indefinite detentions pending final orders of removal hinges directly on the Immigration and Nationality Act’s § 236(c), which permits arrests and detainment pending a final deportation order. Those come from immigration courts, not district courts. With the passage of the INA, Congress tasked immigration courts with handling removal proceedings, thereby stripping district courts of jurisdiction over immigration matters.

More than 300 district judges in Minnesota and elsewhere have so far rejected the government’s mandatory detention policies, ordering detainees released or granted bond hearings. That has fueled a surge of copycat filings nationwide. All the while, appeals courts have yet to address whether the administration’s interpretation of the INA comports with the law.

However, resolutions to this debate may be on the horizon. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit could become the first to issue a decision over the Trump administration’s detainment policy following recent Feb. 3 oral arguments in the case Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi.

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And according to Rosen, relief cannot come soon enough. In his Jan. 30 court filing, he asked the 8th Circuit to reach an “immediate resolution” upon its review of the briefs, or, if not, to promptly schedule an oral argument hearing.

“Absent expedited review, the resources of this Office will continue to be drained as hundreds more habeas petitions are filed,” Rosen said, warning that “other important responsibilities and other priorities will be compromised.”