The chief federal judge in Minnesota lambasted the Trump administration on Thursday for its continued inability to follow court orders in releasing illegal immigrants and raised the possibility of pursuing criminal contempt charges against government officials.
Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said it was “beyond the pale” that the administration surged immigration enforcement officers into the state without the Justice Department being ready for the tsunami of legal challenges that followed.
He also criticized President Trump’s chief prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen, for his defiance and for chasing away so many of his office’s own lawyers.
“The judges of this district have been extraordinarily patient with the government attorneys, recognizing that they have been put in an impossible position by Rosen and his superiors in the Department of Justice,” he wrote. “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.”
Judge Schiltz had previously scolded the government for not complying with the federal court’s release orders. He said he’d had all of the judges check their records and he came up with 96 defied orders in 74 cases.
Mr. Rosen had replied to the judge in an email challenging the data.
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He said he had asked a lawyer to review a sample of 12 of the cases. One was a duplicate and, in eight of the other 11, the migrants were released on time. In six cases there was “no violation at all,” Mr. Rosen said.
“Judge, please pardon me for being so direct, but your order of January 28 did not merely contain some errors,” he wrote. “Assuming the statistical sample we chose is as representative of the whole as I believe it likely is, the information compiled by others for your order was far beyond the pale of accuracy for an order that would be wielded so publicly and so sharply.”
Judge Schiltz said Thursday he ordered a new review and found some errors in the initial count, but said the new tally showed ICE violated 97 orders in 66 cases.
He said he then reviewed other cases, most of them after that initial check, and found an additional 113 orders in 77 other cases.
“This court will continue to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law, including, if necessary, moving to the use of criminal contempt. One way or another, ICE will comply with this court’s orders,” the judge said.
At issue are a flood of habeas corpus petitions demanding release of illegal immigrants picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Habeas petitions have surged nationwide, but the government’s enforcement surge in Minnesota made it the national leader in cases.
Judges by and large have granted the petitions, finding that ICE had been detaining migrants too long or without giving them a chance to post an immigration bond.
The court has ordered bond hearings before immigration judges or, in some instances, ordered outright release.
