New green card rule

The Trump administration announced a new policy Friday that most applicants seeking a green card — which grants immigrants permanent residency — will need to apply from abroad, where they could risk losing their legal status. 

The change is a major shift in the long-standing practice which allowed immigrants to apply for permanent residence through what’s called an “adjustment of status” from within the U.S. In the 2024 fiscal year, around 57% of people who got a green card did so through that process. 

A statement from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services calls the policy “consistent with long-standing immigration law and immigration court decisions.” 

Also Friday, a man carrying a knife was arrested after attempting to enter the Lakeville mosque and suggesting that he was a federal agent. There were no injuries. The Star Tribune reported law enforcement knew of the man through prior mental health-related calls, and that police said they have no information indicating the mosque was targeted for its religion.

Religious leaders with ISAIAH, a religious organizing group, as well as the Lakeville mayor addressed the situation at a press conference Friday. Huzaifa Ahmed, the mosque’s imam, said law enforcement determined the man was experiencing “severe mental health challenges” when he approached the mosque.

Ahmed and other speakers at the press conference tied the incident with a broader trend of “misinformation, fearmongering, and hateful rhetoric about Muslim communities.” The incident came two days after two teenagers killed three men in a San Diego mosque shooting.

Madi McVan, using a trove of 1,100 habeas corpus petitions she manually scanned, found that at least 273 individuals with valid work permits were arrested by immigration authorities during the winter’s immigration crackdown known as Operation Metro Surge. Madi detailed a few of these cases, including one where a Venezuelan family tried to self-deport after the husband  was violently detained and deported. 

On Thursday, Max Nesterak and I went to the Minneapolis federal courthouse to cover developments in fraud in Minnesota’s public programs. I witnessed the sentencing of Aimee Bock — convicted for leading a $242 million pandemic relief fraud scheme known as Feeding Our Future — to over 41 years in prison. 

An hour later, seven floors down, Max reported from a press conference where top Trump administration officials — including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz — announced federal criminal charges against 15 people for allegedly defrauding state Medicaid programs designed to help the state’s children, homeless and disabled. 

The Minnesota Legislature adjourned late Sunday. Despite low expectations, including from the Reformer, they managed to pass a significant infrastructure package, property tax and car tab fee relief and a bailout of HCMC, the state’s critical safety net hospital. They also voted to ensure nearly $200 million in appropriations for conservation projects can go live on July 1, Patrick Coolican reported. Still, lawmakers failed to act on issues that have rocked Minnesota communities in the past few months: gun violence, and relief to those impacted by the winter’s ICE surge. Read takeaways here from Michelle Griffith, who covered the session until the very end. 

I reported that Minnesota became the first state to outlaw prediction markets — online platforms where people can bet on the outcomes of events — on Monday. The state was promptly sued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which claims that prediction market platforms, which facilitate sports betting banned by several states, fall under federal oversight. 

A woman alleged to have threatened Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, had her guns confiscated by way of a 2023 “red flag” law, which allows for the temporary removal of firearms from people deemed to be a risk to themselves or others — a law that Demuth voted against when it passed in 2023, Madi reported. 

Minnesota prosecutors charged ICE agent Christian J. Castro for allegedly shooting a Venezuelan in the leg, and then for allegedly lying about the events leading up to the shooting, on Jan. 14 in north Minneapolis, I reported. The case has taken several turns since Max and I showed up at the scene of protestors and federal agents — most notably, federal prosecutors had charged the man who was shot for allegedly assaulting Castro, but, a few weeks later, dropped the case after tardily watching surveillance footage. 

The Minneapolis Police Department may be required to make public far more records detailing misconduct by its officers after the state Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling, Brian Martucci reported. 

Minnesota’s housing growth slowed down in 2025, I reported. Recent Census estimates put the state’s housing gain in 2025 at 18,283 units, a sharp drop from the growth of around 30,000 units in 2022. Also included is a graph of new housing permits in the Twin Cities metro area going back to 1970.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls picked Brian Nicholson, a political neophyte and businessman, to be his running mate. Reformer Editor Patrick Coolican likened the choice to a massage spa hiring Edward Scissorhands, citing litigation against Nicholson and companies associated with him. 

The Trump administration is suing Minnesota in an attempt to stop the state from suing oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute — for deceiving the public about the climate harms of their products. Leigh Currie, chief legal officer at Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, wrote that Minnesota ought to have its day in court with Big Oil. 

Rachel Téllez, a St. Paul pediatrician, advocated for state and federal legislation to rein in the corporate takeover of healthcare in the form of mergers and acquisitions and private equity ownership. 

Madilyn Morgan and Kendra Bostick, Twin Cities therapists, wrote that unions can help keep the profession sustainable in the face of private equity takeovers.

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