In a startling escalation of the Trump administration’s assault on the judicial system, a county judge in Wisconsin was arrested on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement.
The news of Judge Hannah Dugan’s arrest came Friday via a post on X from FBI Director Kash Patel, who said the FBI believes Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents” who were attempting to arrest a man named Eduardo Flores Ruiz, who was appearing in Dugan’s courtroom. Ruiz was arrested that day by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after ICE agents “chased down the perp on foot,” Patel wrote.
According to The New York Times, charging documents allege that Dugan confronted federal agents when they attempted to arrest Ruiz at her courthouse and subsequently led him out of the courtroom through a jury door. Dugan has since been charged with two felonies: obstruction and concealing an individual, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In a hearing Friday, Dugan’s lawyer said, “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety.”
The Trump administration was already on a collision course with the courts amid its draconian crackdown on both undocumented and legal immigrants over the last two months. But even in the face of flouted court orders, procedural stonewalling, and calls for judges to be impeached over unfavorable rulings, the arrest of a sitting judge for allegedly impeding ICE’s operations is a new, though not entirely unprecedented, low. According to the Times, in President Trump’s first term, a Massuchusetts judge was also arrested on similar charges, which were later dropped.
Dugan’s arrest also speaks to the extent to which the Trump administration is trying to rope all of America’s institutions and their officials into his vast immigration dragnet. In one of his first moves in office, Trump empowered ICE to target people in schools, churches and courthouses for deportation. But officials have warned that arresting people appearing in court for other offenses is particularly fraught, risking public safety by minimizing the chances that people will show up to court.
“We cannot have a functional legal system if people are justifiably afraid to show up for legal proceedings, especially when ICE agents have already repeatedly grabbed people off the street in retaliation for speech and free association, without even obtaining the proper warrants,” Wisconsin state representative Ryan Clancy wrote in a statement Friday. “While the facts in this case are still unfolding, it’s clear that actions like Judge Dugan’s are what is required for democracy to survive the Trump Regime.”
