Minnesota Judge Summons Ice Leader To Court, Threatens Contempt Sanctions

Minnesota’s chief federal judge has ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, to appear in his courtroom Friday and threatened to hold him in contempt for what he says has been repeated defiance of judges’ orders in the state.

“The court’s patience is at an end,” U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said in a three-page order issued Monday night, demanding the acting director explain himself “personally.”

Schiltz’s frustration has been boiling for weeks amid Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s massive immigration enforcement action in the Twin Cities. The operation has flooded the courts with emergency lawsuits brought by immigrants who say they have been illegally arrested or detained. The judges in the district have agreed nearly every time, ordering their immediate release from custody and warning, in increasingly alarming terms, about rampant violations of the law.

Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, said the administration has been slow-walking or outright defying the directives of many Minnesota judges, including at least one of his own: The order for Lyons to appear came in the case of a man Schiltz ordered released on Jan. 15 but who remained detained as of Monday night.

“The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong),” Schiltz wrote. “The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to figure out a way to get home.”

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Other judges in Minnesota have been raising alarms for weeks. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Bill Clinton appointee, similarly accused the administration of “an undeniable move … to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights.”

Several of Schiltz’s colleagues are weighing broader lawsuits that would sharply curtail federal immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota or end Operation Metro Surge altogether. Those lawsuits gained new urgency last week after the shooting death of Alex Pretti by federal officers.

Schiltz tangled with the Trump administration last week as well, after federal prosecutors pressed him to help facilitate the arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and others linked to an anti-ICE protest in a church earlier this month. After Schiltz declined to immediately reverse a magistrate judge’s decision to deny several arrest warrants, the Justice Department raced to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and ordered them to compel Schiltz to act.

The circuit rejected the unusual bid, but not before Schiltz wrote a pair of letters sharply scolding the Justice Department for its tactics and referencing the deluge of “illegal” detention cases that have overwhelmed the court’s docket in Minnesota.