More anti-ICE protests underway nationwide after judge declines to immediately halt Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota

(CNN) — Massive crowds of protesters are marching across the nation to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown Saturday — the same day a judge handed the federal government a win by denying a request to halt an operation that has seen thousands of agents dispatched to Minnesota’s Twin Cities and two people killed.

Demonstrators from coast to coast are marking a second day of a nationwide strike and protest, calling for ICE agents to leave their cities.

As more people take to the streets, President Donald Trump said Saturday he’s instructed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem not to intervene in protests or unrest in Democratic-led cities “under no circumstances,” unless local officials formally request assistance.

Minnesota, St. Paul and Minneapolis sued federal officials earlier this month, calling their immigration enforcement operation a “federal invasion” involving warrantless arrests and excessive force. The operation, said to target undocumented Somali immigrants, has triggered weeks of heightened tensions between city officials and the federal government and heated confrontations on the streets of Minneapolis.

The Trump administration had argued the lawsuit was an overreach. “Put simply, Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement,” it said in a court filing.

In a new ruling Saturday, US District Judge Katherine Menendez allowed Operation Metro Surge to go on as the lawsuit continues against the federal administration.

Meanwhile, a large crowd of demonstrators peacefully marched through the streets of downtown Minneapolis, alongside bikers who participated in a memorial ride for Alex Pretti, the second person to be killed by federal agents in the city this month, aerial footage from CNN affiliate KARE shows.

The ride was one of over 200 confirmed across 43 states taking place this weekend in memory of Pretti and other people killed by federal agents, according to its website.

The deaths of Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis have transformed the national conversation on immigration enforcement and appear to have driven a tone shift from the White House in recent days.

Other peaceful protests calling for ICE to leave communities are underway throughout cities in Southern California, Oregon, Washington, New York and Texas – some under sunny skies and others in frigid temperatures.

Minnesota officials ‘disappointed’ in ruling

In her ruling, Judge Menendez noted evidence federal agents have “engaged in racial profiling, excessive use of force, and other harmful actions.”

She also cited the operation’s negative impacts throughout the state, ranging from “the expenditure of vast resources in police overtime to a plummeting of students’ attendance in schools, from a delay in responding to emergency calls to extreme hardship for small businesses.”

She acknowledged that Minnesota and the cities “have made a strong showing that Operation Metro Surge has had, and will likely continue to have, profound and even heartbreaking, consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and Minnesotans.”

Still, the judge said that the harms of the operation must be balanced with the harms an injunction would pose to the federal government’s efforts to enforce immigration law.

Menendez said in the decision Minnesota officials were unlikely to succeed in their claim that the Trump administration was violating the 10th Amendment, which establishes the division of powers between states and the federal government.

She pointed out that a “much more circumscribed injunction” barring federal agents involved in Operation Metro Surge from arresting or detaining peaceful protesters or using certain crowd control measures against them was vacated.

“If that injunction went too far, then the one at issue here – halting the entire operation – certainly would,” she wrote.

DHS celebrated the ruling, calling it “a win for public safety and law and order” in a statement to CNN Saturday.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he and city officials were “disappointed” with the ruling in a statement from the City of Minneapolis.

“This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place,” the mayor said in the news release.

The city will continue to pursue the lawsuit “to hold the Trump administration to account,” the statement said.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison echoed Frey’s statement, adding the case is in “its infancy and there is much legal road in front of us, so we’re fighting on.”

His office is “adding creative legal strategies that very often are successful, and we will keep using the law in every way we can think of to protect Minnesotans,” the statement said.

National strike kicked off Friday

On Friday, tables sat empty, business windows went dark and students’ desks were abandoned in several cities across the country as part of the nationwide strike.

“No work, no school, no shopping” was the organizers’ rally cry, leading to school walkouts, canceled classes and marches in places as distant from the Midwest as California, North Carolina and Maine.

In Minnesota, waves of demonstrators spilled into the streets for the second week in a row – and some gathered onto a frozen lake to spell out a human SOS on Bde Maka Ska.

In neighboring Wisconsin, students at Preble High School placed flowers and a yellow poster full of messages at a campus memorial in honor of Pretti, who attended the Green Bay school, according to CNN affiliate WLUK.

Even after White House border czar Tom Homan announced the possibility of a drawdown of agents in Minneapolis earlier this week, federal and local officials cannot seem to agree on what compromise might look like.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on social media Friday, “Actions speak louder than words,” adding Minnesotans have “yet to see meaningful change.”

While the Trump administration works to contain backlash over the shootings in Minnesota, it has created a fresh wave of outrage from free speech and press freedom advocates over the Friday arrests of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort on charges related to their coverage of a church protest.

Here’s the latest:

• Justice Department to investigate Pretti killing: US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the agency has opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Pretti, which will probe whether federal officers violated the law when they disarmed and shot him multiple times. The FBI is taking the lead on the investigation, CNN has reported. Still, Blanche said he did not want to “overstate” the probe. “I don’t want the takeaway to be that there’s some massive civil rights investigation that’s happening,” he said, noting it is a “standard investigation by the FBI.”
• Former CNN anchor vows to fight charges: Lemon and Fort were arrested Friday in connection with their coverage of a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. An indictment alleges Lemon, Fort and the protesters “oppressed, threatened, and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors.” Lemon was charged with conspiring to violate someone’s constitutional rights and violating the FACE Act, which prohibits the use of force or threats to intentionally interfere with someone expressing their First Amendment right to religion. Lemon pledged to fight the charges after his release following a court appearance Friday in Los Angeles, saying he “will not be silenced.”
• “Do we have a constitution or not?”: Fort asked after she was released from detention Friday. The arrest of journalists on charges related to doing their job has drawn widespread outrage and condemnation from free press and free speech advocacy groups, as well as several politicians. CNN in a statement said Lemon’s arrest “raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment.”
• Lawsuit challenges ICE warrant policy: Immigrant rights advocates have filed a lawsuit in Boston challenging an ICE policy allowing its officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant. In the past, ICE agents have generally been required to get a warrant signed by a judge before they could enter private homes and businesses. But a whistleblower complaint revealed an ICE official told agents in a memo last May they could use administrative warrants instead.
• Will New York ban police collaboration with ICE?: Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has been a sharp critic of DHS immigration operations, said she is proposing legislation which would prohibit cooperation agreements between local police departments and ICE. The governor is targeting a program called 287(g), which allows ICE to authorize state and local law enforcement to carry out some immigration enforcement duties. DHS data shows there are 14 New York agencies with 287(g) agreements in place. The proposal is likely to pass the Democrat-controlled state legislature.
• Jail cooperation: Border czar Homan reiterated on Fox News on Friday that cooperation from Minnesota jails is essential for an eventual drawdown of immigration enforcement activity in the state. But federal and state officials have butted heads over even basic facts, like the number of inmates with ICE detainers in the state. Ellison, the attorney general, has said state law requires state and local authorities to share information with federal immigration authorities on non-citizens convicted of felonies, but county jails cannot hold people beyond their release date.
• “None of this feels normal”: Frey said in an interview with The New York Times filmed Thursday. The mayor said he’d had a “relatively collegial” but disorienting call with President Donald Trump about the operation involving thousands of federal agents in the Twin Cities: “Never in a million years did I think that I would be having a phone call with President Trump about this large-scale invasion that we’re experiencing in the city that I love.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Sarah Boxer, Andy Rose, Cindy Von Quednow, Taylor Romine, Kara Scannell, Gloria Pazmino, Holmes Lybrand, Brian Stelter, Emma Tucker, Devan Cole, Jennifer Feldman and Lechelle Benken contributed to this report.