Former Hennepin County District Judge Jay Quam, who retired last month, has been publicly reprimanded by the Minnesota Board on Judicial Standards after its investigation concluded he engaged in a sexual relationship with his law clerk and made inappropriate and sexually suggestive comments to other clerks.
Quam was appointed to the Fourth Judicial District bench in 2006 and stepped aside March 7 in the midst of the board’s investigation, which concluded that he violated the Minnesota Judicial Council’s harassment policy.
Former Hennepin County District Judge Jay Quam (Courtesy of Minnesota Judicial Branch)
The board began the investigation after receiving a complaint concerning Quam’s conduct. He cooperated with the case and did not demand a formal complaint and public hearing. He admitted that he engaged in the misconduct outlined in the public reprimand.
The reprimand says Quam engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with his law clerk for a period of time of her employment. The judge and clerk were seen by court employees and justice partners in and around the courthouse “without any apparent business reason,” the reprimand says.
Several years after she left the job, the relationship was renewed and continued until recently. In 2022 and early 2023, on at least three occasions, a court staff person overheard explicit sounds of sexual activity while Quam and his former clerk were in his chambers.
Within the past year, an attorney saw Quam and his former clerk “canoodling” outside the courthouse, sitting close together with hands on each other’s knees, the reprimand says.
Inappropriate comments
Quam’s inappropriate comments to other clerks included telling one that he would like to go to happy hour with her to “see another side of her after a few drinks,” according to the reprimand.
While looking another clerk up and down, Quam said, “Yeah, you definitely have a runner’s body.”
Quam commented to a clerk that she looked great for just having a baby.
He commented on clerks’ clothing in an awkward or flirtatious way, and offered compliments about food intake and appearance.
One clerk estimated that Quam made 50 to 60 inappropriate comments to her during her employment.
Quam would also stand “unnecessarily close” to clerks, or “leer” at them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable.
‘Substantial harm’
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In response to Quam’s conduct, clerks began to wear longer skirts, avoided his invitations to coffee or lunch and acted in an “extra-professional way” to avoid attracting unwanted attention.
“Clerks are fearful that Judge Quam may have an impact on their career and expressed uncertainty about including him as a reference,” the reprimand says.
Quam has otherwise enjoyed a “good reputation” throughout his career and does not have a disciplinary record with the board, the reprimand says.
“However, the degree of notoriety and effect of his misconduct has damaged the public’s confidence in the integrity of the judiciary,” it continues. “Judge Quam’s misconduct was serious and caused substantial harm to the court clerks and staff.”
If Quam had not yet retired, the board may have sought more serious discipline, the reprimand says.
PHOENIX (AP) — The Trump administration’s plan to strictly require anyone illegally in the U.S. to register with the government and carry documentation is stirring up fears of heightened racial profiling even among legal residents, immigrants’ rights advocates say.
For some, it’s a return to a climate from the recent past in which police departments and other law enforcement agencies’ insistence on documentation drove immigrants underground and increased public safety concerns.
“It happens already to an extent. … I think this would make it even worse because how would you know somebody is undocumented?” said Jose Patiño, vice president of education and external affairs for Aliento, an Arizona-based advocacy organization that supports immigrants without documents. “It creates ambiguity of how you’re going to enforce and identify people who are not in the country (legally).”
A federal judge sided with President Donald Trump earlier this month in a lawsuit brought by immigrants’ rights groups over the policy and the mandate took effect April 11. Trump officials say they are simply enforcing a requirement that has been law for decades.
“The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws — we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce,” U.S. Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said in the statement after the ruling. “We must know who is in our country for the safety and security of our homeland and all Americans.”
Under federal law, everyone 14 and older without legal status must self-register and give fingerprints and an address. Parents and guardians of anyone younger must ensure they are registered. Not doing so is considered a crime and a lack of documents risks prison time and fines.
FILE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers use a chain to more comfortably restrain a detained person using handcuffs positioned in front, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
FILE – Caitlin Sanger, of Franklin Park, N.J., pauses to cry outside the Supreme Court in Washington, June 26, 2018, as she speaks about her father being detained by ICE and protests immigrant families being split up. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, file)
FILE – Fatima Mercedes, who’s son was recently detained, cries while being interviewed by journalists during a protest against ICE and migrant detentions in Elizabeth, N.J., March 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, file)
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FILE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers use a chain to more comfortably restrain a detained person using handcuffs positioned in front, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
The mandate has rarely been enforced under previous administrations. To complicate matters, there have been recent instances of authorities detaining even people born in the U.S. as confusion also sweeps through other federal and state immigration policies.
An online appointment app used by temporary residents has sent work permit cancellations since late March, including to U.S. citizens. A growing number of Republican-led states also are refusing to recognize state driver’s licenses specially issued for immigrants without documents.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance, says racial profiling already happens at a disproportionate rate to Black migrants. The sudden pivot has aggravated things and people with Temporary Protected Status or who had regular Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins have been detained during travel, she said.
She decried the whole ordeal as a form of “psychological warfare.” Migrants who were allowed temporary legal residence are not sure if they need to protectively carry documents at all times.
“It is very hard to even communicate with the community members on what to do, telling them they need to know their rights, but they trample on their rights anyway,” Jozef said. “We are back in the ‘show me your papers’ era.”
‘Show me your papers’
The new mandate evokes previous instances of certain groups having to carry documentation. During the time of enslavement in the U.S., freed Black people had to have “freedom papers” or risk being re-enslaved. During World War II, Japanese Americans were required to register and keep identification cards but were put in incarceration camps.
“The statutes that are on the books about registration have been dormant” for 85 years, said Lynn Marcus, director of immigration law clinics at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. “There weren’t forms to comply with this requirement. It was created in wartime originally.”
The renewed strict registration requirement forces U.S. citizens to carry birth certificates or other proof of citizenship at all times, “especially if they have a ‘foreign appearance,’” Marcus said.
People who are valid residents or visa holders could potentially be profiled based on factors other than physical characteristics.
“Let’s say law enforcement encounters someone in another circumstance — maybe they’re reporting a crime,” Marcus said. “They might not be satisfied with answers if they aren’t able to communicate because not all U.S. citizens speak fluent English.”
Impacts on immigrants’ well-being
Eileen Diaz McConnell, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Transborder Studies, pointed to the effects of a 2010 Arizona law requiring all immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers.
In 2012, the Justice Department sued the state over the law and the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the papers requirement, but those two years when the requirement was in place were a traumatic time for Latino families in the state, McConnell said.
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“Parents wouldn’t ride together in a car. They were always separated because they were worried they would be stopped,” Diaz McConnell said. “People don’t leave their house.”
She has done extensive research on how immigration policies can impact the mental health of mixed households of family members who are American-born and don’t have documents.
“In previous years, children report, even if they’re U.S.-born, real harm — impacts on their own sleep, worry, not eating, depression,” Diaz McConnell said. “There will be people who will say things like, ‘Well, if you’re not undocumented, what do you have to worry about?’”
Patiño, whose undocumented parents brought him to the U.S. when he was 6, is accustomed to keeping papers as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient. He knows others without special status are now panicked. The single mother of one of his U.S.-born former interns has stopped going to the grocery store, church and other places since she lacks documents.
“It’s like she’s afraid of her shadow or, like, even to go out and throw out the trash,” he said.
People who crossed the border without documents are especially unsure whether to register in the wake of international students and others being detained or deported even though they had visas or pending court hearings.
“You’re asking people to come out of the shadows and enroll us in a system that most of them probably have not heard of,” Patiño said. “It seems the administration is trying to go catch-22 with folks. You are in trouble if you do, you’re in trouble if you don’t.”
Environmental groups are decrying an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to expedite deep-sea mining for ores and minerals, saying it could irreparably harm marine ecosystems and ignores an ongoing process to adopt international rules for the practice.
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Trump’s order Thursday directed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to fast track permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in both U.S. and international waters.
The move comes as China controls many critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese used in high-tech manufacturing, including for military uses. Trump said his order “establishes the U.S. as a global leader in seabed mineral exploration and development both within and beyond national jurisdiction.”
The order also comes after Canada-based The Metals Company said it would request approval through a U.S. subsidiary for mining in international waters.
The company issued a statement on its website Friday, saying it plans to apply for permits this year to mine nodules that contain valuable minerals “to strengthen U.S. critical mineral supply chains.”
“As always, we remain committed to acting in the best interests of our sponsoring states, partners, investors, and the planet,” said Gerard Barron, the company’s chairman and CEO.
But environmentalists worry it could harm fisheries and even affect oceans’ ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming caused by the burning of coal, gas and other fossil fuels.
More than 30 countries, as well as fisheries trade groups, environmentalists and some auto and tech companies, have called for a moratorium on seabed mining.
“Scientists agree that deep-sea mining is a deeply dangerous endeavor for our ocean and all of us who depend on it,” said Jeff Watters, vice president for external affairs at the Ocean Conservancy. “The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it.’
Such concerns prompted most countries in the 1990s to join a United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority to govern seabed mining in international waters. But the U.S. never signed onto the effort, which has not yet adopted rules.
Watters warned that ignoring those efforts “is opening a door for other countries to do the same” before safeguards are adopted. The ramifications could resonate beyond deep-sea mining, affecting agreements on fishing, shipping, navigation and marine research, warned Duncan Currie, legal advisor for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
“This is a clear case of putting mining companies’ greed over common sense,” said Katie Matthews, chief scientist at the advocacy group Oceana. “Any attempt to accelerate deep-sea mining without proper safeguards will only speed up the destruction of our oceans.”
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
The federal government is reversing the termination of legal status for international students after many filed court challenges around the U.S., a government lawyer said Friday.
Judges around the country had already issued temporary orders restoring the students’ records in a federal database of international students maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The records had been suddenly terminated in recent weeks, often without the students or their schools being notified.
A lawyer for the government read a statement in federal court in Oakland that said ICE was manually restoring the student status for people whose records were terminated in recent weeks. A similar statement was read by a government attorney in a separate case in Washington on Friday, said lawyer Brian Green, who represents the plaintiff in that case. Green provided The Associated Press with a copy of the statement that the government lawyer emailed to him.
It says: “ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain Active or shall be re-activated if not currently active and ICE will not modify the record solely based on the NCIC finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination.”
Green said that the government lawyer said it would apply to all students in the same situation, not just those who had filed lawsuits.
SEVIS is the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems database that tracks international students’ compliance with their visa status. NCIC is the National Crime Information Center, which is maintained by the FBI. Many of the students whose records were terminated were told that their status was terminated as a result of a criminal records check or that their visa had been revoked.
International students and their schools were caught off guard by the terminations of the students’ records. Many of the terminations were discovered when school officials were doing routine checks of the international student database or when they checked specifically after hearing about other terminations.
