A Wisconsin judge not only helped an illegal immigrant escape from federal agents but told him he could appear for his next hearing online to continue shielding him in the future, a grand jury charged Tuesday.
Judge Hannah Dugan made headlines — and became a martyr to the left — after federal authorities said she scuttled a hearing with an illegal immigrant accused of domestic abuse, allowing him to duck out of his appearance in court and ushering him out a private door in her courtroom to protect him from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The indictment, handed up in federal court in Wisconsin, charges the state judge with obstruction and concealing a person from arrest.
The grand jury said Judge Dugan confronted ICE officers, ordered them to leave a public hallway where they’d planned to arrest their target, then, while the officers were distracted, allowed the man to escape out the private exit.
She then advised the migrant’s lawyer he “could appear by ‘Zoom’ for his next court date,” the indictment says.
It also says the judge got the law itself wrong, telling ICE officers they needed a “judicial warrant” to make an arrest. In fact, civil immigration offenses are handled by administrative arrests and do not require a judicial warrant since deportation is not part of the criminal justice system.
Judge Dugan’s lawyers have said she is innocent.
She previously had been charged by criminal complaint.
