The Advocates for Human Rights v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security

How did the court address the AI-related conduct?

Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted plaintiffs' motion for injunctive relief in part and provisionally certified a class of noncitizens detained at the Whipple ERO holding facility. The injunction requires, among other things, written materials and free, private phone access within one hour of detention, a 72-hour hold on out-of-state transfers, and legal visitation seven days a week. On the standard, the court held that the Eighth Circuit does not apply, and "has specifically rejected," a heightened standard for mandatory injunctions, and added in a footnote that plaintiffs would meet one anyway. On the misquotations, the court recorded that this portion of the brief "included other mis-citations as well" and that it "questioned Defendants' counsel at the hearing and received unsatisfactory responses," citing the transcript of the March 19 and 20, 2026 evidentiary hearing. The order imposes no sanction, issues no warning or show-cause directive, and makes no referral concerning the citations. Apart from a later remark that another authority the government cited, Rafiyev v. Mukasey, is "inapposite," the treatment is confined to the body text and footnote 19.

Why does The Advocates for Human Rights v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security matter for law firms using AI?

The citation finding in this case sits inside the court’s discussion of the preliminary injunction standard. The government argued that the relief plaintiffs sought (preventing transfers within 72 hours of detention, unmonitored calls, timely detainee-locator updates) made this a mandatory injunction subject to a heightened standard. Judge Brasel rejected that argument on the law, holding that the Eighth Circuit has specifically rejected a heightened standard for mandatory injunctions, and in the same passage described the relevant portion of the government’s brief as one that “misstates the law and is riddled with misreadings and misquotations.”

Footnote 19 gives the principal example. The brief twice attributed to Planned Parenthood v. Rounds the phrases “particularly disfavored” and “heavy and compelling weight of evidence.” The court found that neither appears in that opinion “nor in any Eighth Circuit case the Court has found that addresses injunctions,” and that “[e]ven under the most charitable of readings,” Rounds “cannot possibly stand for such a proposition,” because it concerns the heightened burden for enjoining state statutes. The footnote adds that the same portion of the brief contained other mis-citations and that the court questioned defense counsel at the hearing and “received unsatisfactory responses.”

The order stops there. It does not mention artificial intelligence, does not order an explanation, and does not impose or threaten a sanction; the Charlotin tracker’s AI attribution is its own inference. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, in this case, the court treated misquoted authority as part of its merits analysis of the standard of review and raised it with counsel at the hearing, so that the finding appears in the court’s written preliminary injunction order.