Last Friday, the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, claiming that she helped a migrant avoid arrest from federal immigration authorities.
While highly irregular, according to law professionals, there is precedent for this arrest—pretty much the same situation happened in 2019 during the first Trump administration. A Massachusetts judge ushered a defendant out of a courtroom where Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers laid in wait, ready to do some arresting. That judge faced charges (though wasn’t dragged out in handcuffs in the public, performative way Dugan was). President Joe Biden ultimately tossed out the charges in the 2019 case.
Whether or not Dugan did what she’s accused of, there’s precedent for judges acting in this way. And, no, Attorney General Pam Bondi, this is not “radical leftist judges” standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. These behaviors are a reaction to ICE’s continued presence in US courtrooms causing a chilling effect on the legal system and making it harder for courts to do their job.
Washington, still a bastion of sanity in some arenas, tackled this ghoulish ICE behavior back in 2020 with a law banning courthouse arrests without warrants, and blocking staff—including lawyers, judges, and security officers—from tipping off ICE. It’s the kind of check on power that we used to rely on the legal system to provide.
This started back in December 2019, when Mary E. Fairhurst, then the chief justice of the Washington Supreme Court, penned a letter to presiding judges around Washington about ICE presence at the courts.
“The problem of immigration arrests at or around our courthouses has deeply troubled me because of the effect it has on our immigrant populations and the growing perception that we are a cooperating entity in those arrests,” Fairhurst wrote.
According to Christopher Sanders, a former federal public defender in Seattle, ICE is a constant presence at state courthouses. “Clients would be arrested by ICE at their state courthouse hearings and then brought down the street and charged with immigration crime,” Sanders said.
Sanders said these officers usually come into courtrooms and don’t identify themselves. They’re often in plain clothes.
Fairhurst’s letter continued: “I do oppose using our locations as the site for those arrests. Our courthouses should be treated as “sensitive locations” like schools and hospital, as a place where everyone should be free to come and go without fear. Our courthouse should not be used as a magnet for targeting certain populations, regardless of their legal status.”
The outrage turned into House Bill 2567 during the 2019-2020 legislative session. The bill contained safeguards outlawing warrantless civil immigration arrests at state courthouses. Beyond that, the bill stopped courts from collecting information about immigration status unless relevant to a person’s trial and prevented anyone sharing private personal information with ICE—they couldn’t even alert ICE about who would be in the courtroom. Additionally, under the bill, court security started collecting the names and purposes of all ICE officers who showed up on any particular day and they alerted judges ahead of proceedings about the officers’ presence.
Sanders and his wife, Erika Evans, who is now running for Seattle City Attorney, jumpstarted a letter writing campaign with the Minority and Justice Commission in support of HB 2567.
Their letters advocated for the bill, but also addressed the question of whether a court could be truly impartial if it didn’t willingly let the people within its walls be detained by ICE—a question that is paramount in Dugan’s arrest.
“We do not believe that HB 2567 jeopardizes the independence of the judiciary,” the Minority and Justice Commission letter read. “Rather, it recognizes the sanctity of courthouses, the rule of law, and the critical role that court personnel play in fostering public confidence in the judicial branch. Access to our courts is fundamental to a functioning democracy.”
Unfortunately, our federal government seems far more interested in theatrics than in maintaining a functioning democracy. Judges who act in the interest of access and fairness, like Dugan may have, will instead face the wrath of Bondi.
“I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law, and they are not,” Bondi told Fox News in an interview last week. “We are sending a very strong message today: If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are. If you are helping hide one, if you are giving a [gang] member guns, anyone who is illegally in this country, we will come after you, and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”
“Wisconsin Judge’s Arrest Couldn’t Have Happened in Washington”
What described in this article would have prevented the arrest of a judge in Washington state for obstructing federal officers?
“Every Courthouse Should be Legally Prohibited From Snitching to ICE”
In the Wisconsin case, there’s no allegation anyone “snitched” to ICE. The charging document says the ICE and FBI agents arrived at the courthouse because they knew of Flores-Ruiz’ presence from the court’s own public documents:
“The Milwaukee ICE ERO Office determined through biometric fingerprint comparison that the fingerprints of the individual charged in Milwaukee County Case Number 2025CM000814 match those in the A-File for the Eduardo Flores-Ruiz…”
“Washington, still a bastion of sanity in some arenas, tackled this ghoulish ICE behavior back in 2020 with a law banning courthouse arrests without warrants, and blocking staff—including lawyers, judges, and security officers—from tipping off ICE.”
Again, no one tipped off ICE, they consulted the public court record. Furthermore, the ICE agents had a warrant for Flores-Ruiz’ arrest.
‘“Clients would be arrested by ICE at their state courthouse hearings and then brought down the street and charged with immigration crime,” Sanders said.’
‘Sanders said these officers usually come into courtrooms and don’t identify themselves. They’re often in plain clothes.’
In the Wisconsin case, ICE and the courthouse had a standing arrangement, and ICE did not enter the courtrooms:
“The sergeant asked that any arrest wait until after the completion of the scheduled hearing before Judge DUGAN. As this was standard practice, Deportation Officer A and CBP Officer A agreed, and they were allowed to proceed unescorted to the public hallway outside of Courtroom 615.”
“The bill contained safeguards outlawing warrantless civil immigration arrests at state courthouses.”
In the Wisconsin case, the ICE agents had a warrant.
“Beyond that, the bill stopped courts from collecting information about immigration status unless relevant to a person’s trial and prevented anyone sharing private personal information with ICE—they couldn’t even alert ICE about who would be in the courtroom.”
Again, there was no sharing of information by the Wisconsin court with ICE.
“Additionally, under the bill, court security started collecting the names and purposes of all ICE officers who showed up on any particular day and they alerted judges ahead of proceedings about the officers’ presence.”
In the Wisconsin case, the federal agents announced their presence and purpose upon entry into the courthouse. An attorney in the courthouse alerted Judge Dugan to the presence of the federal agents.
“… Deportation Officer A and CBP Officer A arrived at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, presented identification to a security guard, and explained that they were present to make an arrest. Deportation Officer A and CBP Officer A were asked to show not only their credentials but also their badges. The security guard stated that she needed to speak with a supervisor. A shift sergeant with Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office was contacted and spoke to Deportation Officer A. They discussed the details of the planned arrest, including in which courtroom Flores-Ruiz was set to appear.”
(All quotes not from the headline post come from https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25919242-hannah-dugan-complaint/)
“Judges who act in the interest of access and fairness, like Dugan may have,”
In fact, Dugan prevented due process in her own courtroom, by releasing the defendant prior to concluding his business in her courtroom.
@1 read the law, arrest in or around a courthouse requires a court order not ICE’s bullshit “administrative warrant.” What the agents in Wisconsin wanted to do is illegal here as a matter of this state’s law.
Who could have foreseen an administration would reuse tactics from its previous term? Oh right, anyone with a fucking brain.
thedjt maladministration’ll
be coming for you, Natty,
tS, its left-of center com-
mentariat and anyone
with a complexion
darker than Won-
der Bread who
dares ponder
Freedom
from
Repression.
the Business of
America is Business
& Getting IN Everybody’s.
had we only
Not supported*
that fucking Genocide
in the Middle East, we’d
Not be in this Predicament
today but Here we fucking ARE.
*$till.
@1 An administrative warrant is not a judicial warrant. Fuck off, Nazi scum!
@2, @4, @5, @6: So, again, what cited in the article would have prevented this same scenario from happening in Washington state? Or is the headline and post simply wrong in that assertion?
@2: We covered this in a previous thread. The federal law under which Dugan is charged simply says “warrant,” it doesn’t distinguish between types of warrants. You claimed a meaningful difference exists, but once again, you haven’t supported that with any quotation from whatever law you keep yelling about.
@7 what part of “What the agents in Wisconsin wanted to do is illegal here as a matter of this state’s law” do you not understand? I suppose the federal agents could have disregarded state law and tried to make an illegal arrest in a courthouse, and then arrested anyone who allegedly obstructed their illegal actions, setting up one of the greatest federalism showdowns in the nation’s history. So in that sense you’re not wrong it COULD have happened here, just like Trump COULD order the military to occupy our statehouse and turn Washington into a federal district like the other Washington by force. So you’re right, there’s a non-zero chance this COULD have happened here, albeit illegally, so the headline is technically incorrect. Congrats.
@6 The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time…
@8: ‘… what part of “What the agents in Wisconsin wanted to do is illegal here as a matter of this state’s law” do you not understand?’
I understand that assertion perfectly well. As I wrote @1, I saw no factual justification for it anywhere in the headline post. Per the headline post’s description of Washington’s law, had an identical law been in effect in Wisconsin last month, it would have changed absolutely nothing. So, the post is completely wrong, from the headline onwards.
Instead of addressing what I clearly wrote, you just rabidly bashed your straw man — sometimes in CAPITAL LETTERS!! Whatevs, dude. Shouting doesn’t make it so.
@6 and @9: You guys sound like G. Gordon Liddy back in the 1990s, when he advocated for killing federal agents. Horseshoe Theory for the win!
(“To be clear, if ICE does a raid where they do no identify themselves clearly…” To be clear, that is not what happened in Wisconsin. The ICE agents identified themselves at the entrance to the courthouse, clearly described why they were there, and went over their plan in detail with the court’s Sergeant.)
@10 in this article there’s a link, the text of which reads “with a law banning.” That link takes you to another article, the very first paragraph of which contains a link to the bill itself. Let me know if that’s enough handholding or you need me to come to your house and read it aloud to you.
“That link takes you to another article, the very first paragraph of which contains a link to the bill itself.”
Because well-written blog posts never put their most important information up-front, right? Readers should have to dig through multiple layers of links to see if the post is correct? That’s good writing? (Jeez, readers here have known for years that truth in the Stranger’s political reporting can be found only in the comments, but you’re really validating that well-worn idea pretty hard here.)
If you want to wade through all of those articles, and show how my statements here are wrong, please go right ahead. Your loudly bashing your straw man does nothing but make me smile. 🙂