Attorneys for the federal government have until Thursday to reach an agreement with human rights lawyers who are seeking to ensure the right to counsel for people detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Minnesota, US District Judge Nancy Brasel said on Saturday. Advocates said people held at the facility on the edge of Minneapolis who face possible deportation are denied adequate access to lawyers, including in-person meetings. 

Brasel told Justice Department attorney Christina Parascandola that there seemed to be a “very wide factual disconnect” between what the human rights lawyers allege and the government’s claims of adequate access at what ICE depicts as only a temporary holding facility. “The gap here is so enormous I don’t know how you’re going to close it,” the judge said.