Ice Chief Demoted Court Orders His Replacement to Appear in Court Possible Contempt
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| ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, was ordered to personally explain the agency’s actions to a federal judge.Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times |
New York Times
In a remarkable display of frustration, the chief federal judge in Minnesota ordered the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in court on Friday to explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating court orders arising from the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the state.
In a brief ruling issued late Monday, the judge, Patrick J. Schiltz, of Federal District Court in Minnesota, said he recognized that ordering ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, to personally defend himself in court was “an extraordinary step.” But Judge Schiltz, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said it was necessary because “the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary.”
Judge Schiltz wrote that he had been “extremely patient” with the agency even though it had sent thousands of agents to the state as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, but did so without preparing for the legal challenges and lawsuits that “were sure to result.”
He concluded, “The court’s patience is at an end.”
While Judge Schiltz’s irritation with the administration was palpable, he left Mr. Lyons a way out of his court summons. The judge said he would cancel the hearing if ICE quickly released an immigrant whom he said had been wrongly detained by agents.
Judge Schiltz’s decision to summon Mr. Lyons came as the federal courts in Minnesota have been deluged by legal cases filed by immigrants swept up in the administration’s dragnet. Some of the immigrants have sought to avoid being shipped out of the state by federal agents, while others have complained about being sent to places like Texas and forced to find their own way home.
The judge’s order stemmed from the case of Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, an Ecuadorean man who entered the United States illegally nearly 30 years ago and has been in custody after immigration agents detained him on Jan. 6, according to court papers.
On Jan. 14, Judge Schiltz ordered ICE to allow Mr. Tobay Robles to challenge his detention at a hearing within a week or release him from custody altogether. As part of the ruling, the judge determined that ICE was holding Mr. Tobay Robles under an improper reading of federal law — one of hundreds of such cases that have unfolded in courts across the country in recent months.
On Monday night, Judge Schiltz wrote that ICE had failed to obey his instructions, noting that Mr. Tobay Robles had not yet had a hearing but remained in custody.
“This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” the judge wrote without specifying other examples. “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.)”
Judge Schiltz, who once clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, is an unlikely critic of the White House. But his summons of Mr. Lyons was his second clash with the Trump administration in less than a week.
On Friday, he expressed exasperation about an extraordinary request from the Justice Department to have him reverse a another judge’s decision and personally issue arrest warrants for the journalist Don Lemon and four other people in connection with a protest at a church service in St. Paul this month.
In a letter to the appeals court that sits over him, Judge Schiltz called the request by department lawyers “frivolous” and “unprecedented,” categorically rejecting their assertion that the warrants for Mr. Lemon and the others were needed on an emergency basis.
Judge Schiltz’s loss of patience with the administration comes at a particularly fraught moment for the Justice Department, which has been called upon to defend the government in other significant cases in the Minnesota federal courts.
One judge in Minneapolis, Kate M. Menendez, held a hearing on Monday to consider whether the administration’s surge of some 3,000 immigration agents to the state had effectively become an unconstitutional occupation. Lawyers for the state and for the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have asked Judge Menendez to temporarily halt the surge, but she has not yet issued her decision.
In a separate case, a federal judge in St. Paul heard arguments on Monday about whether to extend a preliminary order he issued over the weekend forcing the Department of Homeland Security to preserve evidence arising from the fatal shooting on Saturday of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse.
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