Judge Vows to End Trump Administration’s Noncompliance ‘One Way or Another’
“U.S. District Court Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials of noncompliance with court orders related to immigration enforcement. He identified 210 instances of noncompliance in 143 cases, including missed deadlines and unauthorized detainee transfers. Judge Schiltz threatened criminal contempt if the pattern continued, criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of immigration-related lawsuits and the strain it placed on the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota.
The federal judge identified 210 orders issued in 143 cases in Minnesota in which he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not complied with court orders.
The chief federal judge in Minnesota accused federal officials of continuing to disobey judicial orders related to immigration enforcement and then mischaracterizing the scope of their missteps.
The judge, Patrick Schiltz, threatened to hold government officials in criminal contempt if the pattern continued, writing in a scathing order on Thursday that, “one way or another, ICE will comply with this court’s orders.”
“The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders,” wrote Judge Schiltz, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.
Across the country, federal judges have repeatedly called out Trump administration officials in recent weeks for testifying dishonestly, representing the law inaccurately and failing to comply promptly with their orders, especially on immigration-related matters. Tensions between the judiciary and the Trump administration have been especially high in Minnesota, where the courts have been overwhelmed with lawsuits stemming from a crackdown on illegal immigration.
On Thursday, Judge Schiltz identified 210 orders issued in 143 cases in Minnesota in which he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not complied with court orders. Federal officials had previously taken issue with Judge Schiltz’s characterization of their compliance with orders.
In his opinion, the judge quoted from an email that he said was sent to him by Daniel N. Rosen, the state’s top federal prosecutor, that acknowledged some missteps but argued that the judge had overstated their scope.
Judge Schiltz acknowledged in his ruling that federal officials had not disobeyed orders in some cases he had previously cited, but noted dozens of additional examples where he said the government did not obey a judge’s instructions. Among the errors: missing deadlines for releasing detainees, transferring a detainee to Texas against a judge’s order and not filing required updates with the court.
Mr. Rosen declined to comment on Thursday. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota has seen an exodus of experienced lawyers in recent weeks who said they objected to the Justice Department’s handling of immigration-related matters, including the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, by an ICE agent.
In the email that Judge Schiltz quoted from, sent on Feb. 9, Mr. Rosen pledged to “redouble our efforts to achieve compliance,” but complained that “the lawyers in my civil division didn’t deserve” to be criticized by the judge in the way they were.
On Thursday, Judge Schiltz questioned the sincerity of Mr. Rosen’s promise to improve — “This, too, appears to be untrue,” the judge wrote — and noted that the government had continued to fail to comply with orders.
Judge Schiltz also expressed some sympathy for lawyers in the U.S. attorney’s office, saying judges had been patient with them, “recognizing that they have been put in an impossible position by Rosen and his superiors in the Department of Justice.”
“What those attorneys ‘didn’t deserve’ was the administration sending 3,000 ICE agents to Minnesota to detain people without making any provision for handling the hundreds of lawsuits that were sure to follow,” the judge added.
The relationship between a district’s chief judge and its top federal prosecutor is normally a collegial one, and the order from Judge Schiltz marked an extraordinary break between Minnesota’s federal judiciary and Mr. Rosen’s office.
This year, two judges on the court that Judge Schiltz leads, including one of President Trump’s appointees, have found the administration in civil contempt for disobeying judicial orders, a remedy that judges have only used against the executive branch a handful of times.
Civil contempt rulings are intended to encourage compliance by imposing a penalty. On Thursday, Judge Schiltz threatened to go further and potentially sanction government officials with criminal contempt, which punishes willful defiance of the courts with fines or imprisonment.
Judge Schiltz, who decades ago clerked for Justice Antonin G. Scalia, had in recent weeks showed flashes of growing frustration and anger with the Trump administration, emerging as an unexpected new critic of the administration’s tactics in court. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security referred to the concerns expressed in one of his previous orders as a “diatribe from this activist judge.”
In a court filing late last month, Mr. Rosen said that the flood of lawsuits filed by immigrants contesting their detention had strained his office, forcing prosecutors to put off other cases.
“The Court is setting deadlines within hours, including weekends and holidays,” Mr. Rosen wrote. “Paralegals are continuously working overtime. Lawyers are continuously working overtime.”
The office is contending with a severe staff shortage that worsened early this year as several of the office’s most experienced litigators resigned in protestover aspects of the immigration crackdown.
At the end of the Biden administration, the office had 64 prosecutors, Mr. Rosen said during a news conference on Wednesday. As of this week, it had 36. Among the lawyers who recently departed was Ana Voss, who had been the head of the civil division, which handles lawsuits filed by immigrants.
Also, Jim Stolley, the chief counsel for ICE in the state, retired early this month.Mr. Stolley, a veteran of the agency, did not publicly address the timing of his departure.
On Wednesday, Mr. Rosen said that his office was hoping to add several new attorneys soon. “We’re hiring at a good clip,” he said.
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.“
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