HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — A federal appellate court blocked a lower judge's restrictions on immigration law enforcement’s Minnesota operations on Monday.

A three-judge panel in the 8th Circuit, which has an office in Saint Paul, stayed District Judge Katherine Menendez’s order that prohibited federal agents from retaliating or using pepper spray against protesters. Menendez also blocked officers from stopping protesters who are following their activities in their cars.

“The district court entered a preliminary injunction with respect to federal immigration-enforcement operations in Minnesota. The injunction is unlikely to survive the government’s interlocutory appeal, ... so we stay it pending a final decision in this case,” the panel, which includes Judges Raymond Gruender, Bobby Shepherd and David Stras, wrote.

The bench ruled that Menendez’s order is too vague. Her direction for law enforcement to not retaliate against people “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity,” as well as the judge’s prohibition on “stopping or detaining drivers ... where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with" agents, are simply commands to “obey the law,” according to the appellate court.

“Even the provision that singles out the use of ‘pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools’ requires federal agents to predict what the district court would consider ‘peaceful and unobstructive protest activity,’” the panel said.

“A wrong call could end in contempt, yet there is little in the order that constrains the district court’s power to impose it.”

Gruender disagreed with his colleagues for their opinion on pepper spray use. He wrote in a dissenting statement that he wouldn’t stay Menendez’s order on it since it isn’t a vague “obey the law” injunction.

“Reading the injunction in the context of the facts and circumstance of this case, the Government has not demonstrated that trained federal agents are unlikely to understand how to comply with an order not to ‘us[e] pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools' against persons ‘engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity,’” Gruender said.

Menendez issued her order earlier this month in response to a lawsuit by Minnesota protesters, on behalf of anyone who is demonstrating against, recording or observing the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations in the state. The appellate court determined that a ruling for such a large class represents a universal injunction, which federal courts can’t issue.

“Even if ‘courts may issue temporary relief to a putative class,’ this one has no chance of getting certified,” the panel said. “And overlooking the difficulties of certification ... is not necessary ‘to preserve our jurisdiction.’”

Have questions, concerns or tips? Send them to Ray at rjlewis@sbgtv.com.