CNN
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The arrest of a Wisconsin state judge for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant to avoid his arrest opened a new front in the aggressive attempt of the Trump government to carry out a historical deportation campaign.
The decision of the justice Department of accusing Judge Hannah Dugan, of the Milwaukee County Circuit, for obstruction and hide the individual of the arrest, highlighted the decision of the administration to exercise the application of the immigration law in certain places that in the past have been mostly out of the limits for such federal activity, including courts, schools and places of cult.
His arrest on Friday morning immediately attracted intense criticism of legal experts and democratic legislators, who mostly saw him as the most recent attempt by the Trump government to press the courts throughout the country while moving forward with controversial immigration policies.
“Pure intimidation, nothing more than that,” said Federal Judge withdrawn Nancy Gertner.
The Department of Justice has repeatedly stated that it will investigate any local official who does not collaborate with federal immigration authorities. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump reactivated a policy of his first mandate that allows federal officials to make arrests related to immigration in court.
However, as in the so -called Sanctuary cities throughout the US, judicial officials are not obliged to work with federal officials in such arrests if the order being executed is administrative and non -judicial.
Such was the case of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, whom federal officials tried to arrest on April 18, the day he appeared before Dugan in a criminal issue. After learning that the officials had an administrative order for Flores-Ruiz, the judge allegedly helped him already his lawyer to leave for a non-public area of the court. Flores-Ruiz was arrested by federal agents shortly after.
“Without a (judicial) order, obviously there would be no obligation to cooperate. It would only happen if there was a court order,” said Jeff Swartz, a former state of Florida, Brianna Keilar de CNN in “CNN News Central.” “He has no obligation to collaborate in the arrest of that defendant in a civil matter.”
Federal former Elfiscal Elie Honig said he is likely that Dungan would not face federal charges if he had only declined to cooperate with the agents that day.
In order for his behavior to result in the positions he faces, he said, “you need to take some affirmative act. And here, show this person the back door, give access to the rear door and then guide the person through the rear door would be an affirmative act.”
However, Honig, a legal analyst at CNN, emphasized that prosecutors must take into account a series of factors by deciding whether to present obstruction charges is “appropriate and necessary.”
In this case, he said, there are legitimate doubts about whether to present charges against Dugan could represent an overreach of the Prosecutor’s Office.
Dugan’s lawyer, Steven Biskupic, said in a statement on Friday that his client “has committed himself to the rule of law and the principles of due process throughout his career as a lawyer and judge.”
“Judge Dugan will defend himself vigorously and hopes to be exonerated,” he added.
Dugan’s arrest is not the first time that the Trump Department of Justice accuses a judge in functions of helping an undocumented immigrant to evade an immigration officer.
In 2019, a state judge of Massachusetts was accused of obstruction of justice and other federal positions, which were then retired during the Biden administration.
“I think the Canarian in the coal mine was the case of Shelley Joseph in Massachusetts,” Gertner said.
She and other experts with whom CNN spoke said that the way in which that case was handled was much more measure than how the Department of Justice has managed that of Dugan, underlining the political nature of the new matter.
Gertner, for example, emphasized the fact that Dugan was arrested for a white -collar crime, while Massachusetts judge, Shelley Richmond Joseph, was not arrested.
“I can’t emphasize enough how absurd that is,” Gertner said. “This is not a person who is going to flee. This is not a person who is a threat to the community.”
Experts also pointed out the public statements of Trump government officials who promoted the case of Dugan as evidence of their intention to use their prosecution for political purposes.
Among those officials is the Secretary of Justice, Pam Bondi, who said in an interview in Fox News after the arrest was executed that “if evidence is destroyed and justice is obstructed, when they have victims sitting in a court of domestic violence and an accused is escorted by the rear door, it will not be tolerated”.
“I think some of these judges believe they are above the law, and it is not so,” Bondi added.
Doug Keith, who serves as the main advisor in the Judiciary program of the Brennan Center for Justice, said that more dramatic episodes may arise as the Trump administration continues to seek generalized cooperation in its deportation campaign.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the last conflict we’ll see how this,” Keith said.
“The policy change that ICE made around the arrests in court on January 21 has created these circumstances in which we should expect to see chaos such as this developing in more courts throughout the country,” he added.
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