A federal judge in Minnesota issued a warning to Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, threatening to hold him in contempt of court. The judge ordered Lyons to show up in person to explain why his agency isn’t listening to court orders.
Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz said clearly that the court’s “patience is at an end.” The conflict reached a boiling point after the administration failed to follow an order to give a bond hearing to a detained man and release him.
Schiltz didn’t hold back in his written order. He noted that this wasn’t a one-time mistake and wrote that this is just one of “dozens” of orders that immigration officials have ignored in recent weeks.
He explained that ignoring these rules causes real pain for people who, in many cases, have lived and worked in the U.S. for years without doing anything wrong.
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Schiltz described situations where people are stuck in detention longer than necessary, or worse, flown to Texas only to be released there with no way to get back home.
The specific case that triggered this showdown involves Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, a citizen of Ecuador. Court records show he crossed the U.S. border as a minor back in 1999. He was detained earlier in January at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Even though the judge ordered a bond hearing for him on January 14, his lawyers told the court on Friday that he was still locked up and hadn’t received his hearing.
Now, Judge Schiltz wants answers directly from the top. He directed Lyons to appear personally before the court this Friday to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt. The judge admitted that forcing the head of a federal agency to appear in person is a huge step. However, he insisted that the extent of ICE’s violations is also huge, and that “lesser measures have been tried and failed.”
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The Department of Homeland Security has not yet responded to requests for comment.
In his writing, Schiltz expressed frustration with how the operation was planned. He noted that the court tried to be patient when the agency sent thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain people, even though they seemingly made no plans for how to handle the hundreds of lawsuits that followed.
Despite constant promises from officials that they would follow court orders moving forward, the judge says those promises simply haven’t been kept.
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