Three separate legal challenges to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations have emerged in a single day, painting a broader picture of judicial and prosecutorial pushback against the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. In Minnesota, Ramsey County officials announced they are investigating the January arrest of ChongLy "Scott" Thao, a 56-year-old Hmong American citizen, as a potential kidnapping and false imprisonment after ICE agents broke into his St. Paul home without a warrant and removed him in freezing temperatures — later realising he had no criminal record and was not their target. Separately, in central California, a man shot multiple times by ICE agents during an enforcement stop last week, Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, was taken into FBI custody upon hospital discharge without notice to his family or attorney, raising concerns about due process; his lawyer disputes the agency's characterisation of him as a gang member, noting he was acquitted of murder in El Salvador. Meanwhile, a divided federal appeals court ruled that U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg (a Washington, D.C. federal judge who had issued orders restricting deportation flights) must halt his contempt investigation into the administration's transfer of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison in defiance of a court order, with the ACLU warning the decision undermines judicial authority over the executive branch.