Under Tension:
The Rule of Law and
Operation Metro Surge
November 5, 2026
8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Central Time
Mitchell Hamline School of Law Auditorium
In person and livestreamed via Zoom
The views expressed at the symposium are only those of the individual and do not represent those of any other entity, government, or organization.
The symposium is free to attend; CLE approval pending.
Registration is required.
Symposium Schedule
8:00–8:30 a.m. | Arrival & Check-In
8:30–8:45 a.m. | Welcome & Opening Remarks
8:45–9:45 a.m. | Introduction & Fact-Finding Panel
9:45–10:00 a.m. | Break
10:00–11:00 a.m. | Sovereignty, Federalism & Tribal Nations
11:05 a.m.–12:05 p.m. | Keynote: Dean Erwin Chemerinsky
12:05–1:05 p.m. | Lunch
(Mitchell Hamline School of Law Conservatory)
1:05–2:05 p.m. | Immigration, Enforcement & the Rule of Law
2:05–2:20 p.m. | Break
2:20–3:20 p.m. | Law Enforcement & Prosecutorial Discretion
3:20–4:05 p.m. | Closing Conversation
4:05–4:30 p.m. | Closing Remarks & Adjournment
Introduction & Fact-Finding Panel
8:45–9:45 a.m.
This session will lay out a chronological, fact-based account of Operation Metro Surge. The discussion is intended to remain focused on the facts and grounded in sourced research, minimizing political commentary. This panel is designed to give attendees the shared factual foundation needed to follow the rest of the day’s program.
Panelists
Hetal Dalal
Associate Professor of Law
Hetal Dalal is an associate professor in Legal Writing. Dalal has wide-ranging expertise in nonprofit, tax, labor and employment, campaign finance, corporate governance, and public interest law, as well as associated litigation and transactional skills. She has a longstanding interest in the link between rhetorical skills and the preservation of democratic values and a well-informed citizenry.
Dalal has served as in-house counsel for The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and its predecessor organization, which she co-founded, since 2010. This organization—which has 100 staff members, a $30 million budget, and affiliated community organizations with 600,000 members in 35 states—is one of the country’s leading organizations advocating for racial equality and economic justice.
Dalal worked in-house at ACORN, developed an independent immigration practice representing businesses and employees, and served as an Associate Attorney at Fulbright & Jaworski. Dalal graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School, where she was a board member of the Minnesota Justice Foundation, participated in the Immigration Law Clinic and the Criminal Defense Clinic, as well as the student-run Asylum Law Project. She clerked for the Honorable Kathleen A. Blatz, then Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Ana Pottratz Acosta
Associate Professor of Law
Ana Pottratz Acosta joined Mitchell Hamline in 2016 as a clinical instructor teaching the Health Law Clinic and overseeing the Medical-Legal Partnership between the law school and Riverland Community Health, a Federally Qualified Healthcare (FQHC) facility in St. Paul. Professor Acosta also teaches courses in Immigration Law and Professional Responsibility at Mitchell Hamline.
During the 2025–2026 academic year, Professor Acosta held a one-year appointment as a Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, teaching courses in Immigration Law and leading the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, an affiliated clinic of the James H. Binger Center for New Americans.
Professor Acosta is also a governor’s appointee to the Minnesota Board of Civil Legal Aid (BOCLA) and the Minnesota Truth Council to investigate Operation Metro Surge and Operation PARRIS. Professor Acosta is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and Columbia Law School and is also a doctoral candidate in International Migration and Cooperative Development at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, Spain.
Sovereignty, Federalism & Tribal Nations
10:00–11:00 a.m.
This panel explores what happens when federal enforcement power collides with state and tribal authority. Discussion will center on the structural limits federalism places on federal action, the distinct sovereignty interest of tribal nations, and what mechanisms exist and whether they are adequate when federal, state, and tribal legal obligations come into conflict.
Moderator
David Schultz
Hamline University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies
David Schultz is Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Political Science, Environmental Studies, and Legal Studies at Hamline University, and he holds the Winston Folkers Endowed Distinguished Faculty Chair. He is also a Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas and a professor at the General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania.
A four-time Fulbright scholar who has taught extensively in Europe and Asia, and the winner of the Leslie A. Whittington national award for excellence in public affairs teaching, David is former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Public Affairs Education and the author of more than 45 books and 200+ articles on various aspects of American politics, election law, and the media and politics.
David is former executive director of Common Cause Minnesota and a former vice president for the Minnesota and South Texas chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is licensed to practice law in Minnesota and before the U.S. Supreme Court. David is also currently editor-in-chief of the Minneapolis Times.
Panelists
Angelique EagleWoman
Professor
Professor Angelique W. EagleWoman (Wambdi A. Was’teWinyan) is a law professor, legal scholar, Chief Justice on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Supreme Court, and has served as a pro tempore Tribal Judge in several other Tribal Court systems. She is the director of the Native American Law and Sovereignty (NALS) Institute at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.
She is the author of Native American Law: Tribal Nations and the United States Relations Cases and Materials (1st ed. 2025) and the co-author of Mastering Native American Law (3rd ed. 2024) with Dean Stacy Leeds, Cherokee Nation. As a practicing lawyer, one of the highlights of her career was serving as General Counsel for her own Tribal Nation, the Sisseton-Wahpeton (Dakota) Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation.
She has taught in the areas of Indigenous Legal Traditions, Tribal Nation Economics & Law, Native American Law, Native American Natural Resources Law, Contracts, The Business of Law, and Civil Procedure. She presents and publishes on topics involving Tribal-based economics, Indigenous sovereignty, international Indigenous principles, and the quality of life for Indigenous peoples.
At the University of Idaho College of Law, she established the Native American Law Emphasis program and graduated 33 students over seven years. She also served as dean of the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University and was the first Indigenous law dean in Canada. She enjoys serving as a board member for the Minnesota Native American Bar Association (MNABA).
She has received numerous awards in legal academia and has been a frequent speaker on issues of diversity, inclusion, and professionalism. Professor Angelique EagleWoman is a proud enrolled member and citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation and is a citizen of the United States.
Brian Carter
Special Counsel, Rule of Law, Office of the Minnesota Attorney General
Bio to come.
Irene Kao
Saint Paul City Attorney
Irene Kao joined the City of Saint Paul in 2026, bringing extensive public-sector and leadership experience. Most recently, Kao served on the executive leadership team and led the legal team as General Counsel at the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, which is a state agency that finances the creation and preservation of affordable housing across Minnesota. Kao provided critical legal guidance as Minnesota Housing implemented the historic $1.3 billion statewide affordable housing legislative package in 2023.
Kao has a decade of experience as a municipal attorney serving Minnesota cities. At the League of Minnesota Cities, she led policy and legislative change impacting how cities do their day-to-day work. She did this work in a collaborative manner among cities and stakeholders.
Kao is a leader within the broader legal community. She has received recognition from state and national organizations, including the Minnesota State Bar Association and Minnesota Lawyer, as well as the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
Keynote Address
11:05 a.m.–12:05 p.m.
Dean Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law
Dean Chemerinsky is delivering the keynote for the symposium on the rule of law in Minnesota viewed through the lens of Operation Metro Surge, drawing on his background in constitutional law and the intersection of law and political institutions.
Erwin Chemerinsky is Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He has been a professor, teaching Constitutional Law and related subjects, for 46 years and has been on the faculty of DePaul College of Law, University of Southern California Law School, Duke Law School, and was founding Dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
He is the author of 22 books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. His most recent major books are Campus Speech and Academic Freedom (with Howard Gillman) (Yale Press 2026) and Taking Sides: The Supreme Court October 2025 (American Bar Association 2025).
He is also the author of more than 200 law review articles and writes regular columns for several publications. In 2016, he was selected to be a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Immigration, Enforcement & the Rule of Law
1:05–2:05 p.m.
This panel will examine the constitutional boundaries of federal immigration enforcement, using Operation Metro Surge as a lens. Discussion will center on the scope and limits of federal immigration authority, the due process protections that apply during large-scale enforcement operations, and the role of courts and legal institutions in responding when enforcement raises serious constitutional questions.
Moderator & Speaker
Gloria Contreras-Edin
Attorney at Law
Gloria Contreras Edin is the Founder of Contreras Edin Law, P.A., where she represents individuals and families in complex immigration matters, removal proceedings and federal litigation. An immigration attorney with more than two decades of experience, she has represented thousands of clients from more than 25 countries and has extensive experience litigating issues involving immigration enforcement, detention, removal, and constitutional protections.
Ms. Contreras Edin is an Adjunct Professor of Immigration Law and a member of the Board of Trustees at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. She has written and presented on immigration law and the impact of immigration law and policy on immigrant communities, including co-authoring a chapter of the Immigration Practice Deskbook. In 2026, she was invited to speak before Congress regarding Operation Metro Surge and the effects of federal immigration enforcement on individuals, families, and communities.
Her recent professional honors include annual recognition as a Most Influential Lawyer since 2023, Super Lawyers, Lawyers of Distinction, the 2026 Great North Innocence Project Pro Bono Champions Award, and Minnesota United’s 2026 L’Étoile du Nord recognition.
Ms. Contreras Edin is admitted to practice before the Minnesota Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States. She earned her J.D. from Hamline University School of Law and her B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Northridge.
Panelists
Ryan Wood
Founding Principal Partner, Emeriti Law
Ryan R. Wood is the Principal Founding Partner of Emeriti Law PLLC, a nationwide immigration firm with offices in Saint Paul, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Cleveland. He retired from the Executive Office for Immigration Review in February 2025 after more than 20 years of federal service.
From 2019 to 2025, he served as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, supervising 20 immigration judges and more than 80 staff across courts in Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri, and before that as an Immigration Judge presiding over the Fort Snelling detained docket.
Earlier in his career, he was a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Minnesota, an ICE Associate Chief Counsel and designated National Security Attorney, and a U.S. Army Judge Advocate who deployed to Iraq and received the Bronze Star Medal. He now advises attorneys and organizations on immigration enforcement risk and handles complex removal and appellate matters. He holds a J.D., M.B.A., and B.A. from Hamline University, where he served as an editor of the Hamline Law Review.
Dillon White
Attorney
Dillon White is an attorney in Messerli Kramer’s litigation group, where he focuses on complex, high-stakes cases venued throughout the country, often serving as co-counsel to represent clients in almost every state. His clients frequently seek him out in cases involving significant media attention, knowing that he has the ability to handle both the media spotlight and the legal work.
He is frequently brought in to assist in complicated matters that touch multiple issues and span jurisdictions. He has a deep background in mass torts, employment law, personal injury, discrimination, advertising and media law, medical malpractice, product liability, wrongful death, and Title IX, and he started his career representing victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment across a variety of institutional organizations and governmental entities.
Dillon strives to meet both his clients and his colleagues where they are, a byproduct of not only his legal background but also his educational one. He formerly served as a constitutional law professor with a focus on the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment, and is currently authoring one of the most popular Substack publications on constitutional law.
He is also a regular guest on local and national outlets for his opinions on the law as they relate to current events, primarily due to his status on social media. With a following of almost 10 million people across platforms, Dillon is more commonly known as “dadchats,” where he operates one of the largest individual social media presences in Minnesota, including the biggest legal platform.
Ana Pottratz Acosta
Associate Professor of Law
Ana Pottratz Acosta joined Mitchell Hamline in 2016 as a clinical instructor teaching the Health Law Clinic and overseeing the Medical-Legal Partnership between the law school and Riverland Community Health, a Federally Qualified Healthcare (FQHC) facility in St. Paul. Professor Acosta also teaches courses in Immigration Law and Professional Responsibility at Mitchell Hamline.
During the 2025–2026 academic year, Professor Acosta held a one-year appointment as a Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, teaching courses in Immigration Law and leading the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, an affiliated clinic of the James H. Binger Center for New Americans.
Professor Acosta is also a governor’s appointee to the Minnesota Board of Civil Legal Aid (BOCLA) and the Minnesota Truth Council to investigate Operation Metro Surge and Operation PARRIS. Professor Acosta is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and Columbia Law School and is also a doctoral candidate in International Migration and Cooperative Development at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, Spain.
Law Enforcement, Prosecutorial Discretion, & Legal Accountability
2:20–3:20 p.m.
This panel looks at how lawyers and public officials respond to the legal and practical challenges that arise during large-scale enforcement operations. Panelists will discuss the choices facing law enforcement and prosecutors, including questions of professional independence, institutional pressure, and constitutional and ethical responsibility. The discussion will also explore how lawyers representing affected individuals and communities use habeas, constitutional litigation, and other forms of advocacy to challenge government action and protect individual rights. The panel will consider the experiences of those documenting or responding to enforcement activity, the broader effects of enforcement operations on affected communities, and what the rule of law requires of lawyers working in very different roles.
Moderator
Jim Hilbert
Professor of Law
Jim Hilbert is a professor of law and Senior Fellow at the Dispute Resolution Institute at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. His scholarship focuses on police reform, state constitutional law, school desegregation, and civil rights enforcement.
Before entering academia, Professor Hilbert practiced as a civil rights attorney for more than a decade and served as a legal fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Race and Poverty. He is a longtime executive committee member of the St. Paul NAACP and serves as ad hoc counsel to the Minnesota-Dakotas Area State Conference of the NAACP. He previously served as Mitchell Hamline’s interim president and dean and as vice dean.
Panelists
Thomas Calhoun-Lopez
Counsel
Tom is counsel in the Minneapolis office of Lathrop GPM, where he specializes in government investigations, white-collar defense, and complex litigation. Prior to joining Lathrop GPM, Tom was an Assistant U.S. Attorney, most recently as the Chief of the Violent and Major Crimes Section.
Prior to joining the Justice Department in 2009, Tom was an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army, where he served as a combat arms officer and as an Army Judge Advocate. Tom deployed to Iraq twice on active duty.
Irina Vaynerman
Chief Executive Officer
Irina Vaynerman is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Groundwork Legal, a nonprofit legal organization dedicated to advancing justice and democracy. She is a nationally respected civil rights attorney and leader who has dedicated her life to taking a bold, strategic approach that makes transformational change inside and outside government.
Irina served as the Deputy Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, the state’s civil rights enforcement agency, for six and a half years. As Deputy Commissioner, she directed impact litigation to secure legal rights for Minnesotans in the workplace, in schools, in the marketplace, and when receiving services from the government.
Irina led the pattern-or-practice investigation of the City of Minneapolis and Minneapolis Police Department, and she was the chief negotiator for the State to reach a consent decree with the City and MPD to address race-based policing and strengthen public safety.
Irina has experience working in a variety of pro-democracy and civil rights organizations across the country, focusing on racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, and immigrant rights. She is also a leader in the pro-democracy space, identifying paths for transformational change through state courts.
She is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. After graduating from law school, Irina served as a federal law clerk for the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Michelle Basham
Adjunct Professor and Nonprofit Leader
Michelle Basham has been a leader in the nonprofit sector for more than 25 years, leading various organizations and advocating for people experiencing racism, homophobia, homelessness, sexual exploitation, and abuse, particularly LGBTQ+ youth.
She holds a law degree and an MPA in addition to having completed a fellowship at the Humphrey Institute Public Policy Forum. Michelle and her husband have been actively engaged in resisting ICE tactics in Minnesota and fighting to protect the rights of immigrants and refugees.
Michelle is a trained constitutional observer, has been all over the state documenting ICE activities, advising immigrant-owned businesses of their rights, and also volunteers as a dispatcher for rapid response. In doing this work, she has been boxed in, threatened, and followed by ICE, in addition to regularly having drones in her backyard monitoring her and her husband and ICE parked in front of her house to try to intimidate them.
She serves as an adjunct professor at MHLS and as a nonprofit consultant.