MILWAUKEE (AP) — Protesters chanted and marched Saturday exterior the FBI after brokers arrested a Milwaukee choose accused of serving to a person evade immigration authorities. The case has escalated a conflict between the Trump administration and native authorities over the Republican president’s sweeping immigration crackdown.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court docket Choose Hannah Dugan is accused of escorting the person and his lawyer out of her courtroom via the jury door final week after studying that immigration authorities had been searching for his arrest. The person was taken into custody exterior the courthouse after brokers chased him on foot.
President Donald Trump’s administration has accused state and native officers of interfering along with his immigration enforcement priorities. The arrest additionally comes amid a rising battle between the administration and the federal judiciary over the president’s government actions over deportations and different issues.
On Saturday, protesters chanted “Immigrants are here to stay” and held up indicators saying, “Liberty and Justice for All” exterior the FBI’s Milwaukee division.
“The judiciary acts as a check to unchecked executive power. And functioning democracies do not lock up judges,” Democratic state Rep. Ryan Clancy advised the group earlier than it marched across the space.
Dugan was taken into custody by the FBI on Friday morning on the courthouse grounds, based on U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Brady McCarron. She appeared briefly in federal court docket in Milwaukee later Friday earlier than being launched from custody. She faces expenses of “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest” and obstructing or impeding a continuing.
“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her legal professional, Craig Mastantuono, stated in the course of the listening to. He declined to remark to an Related Press reporter following her court docket look.
Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, in an announcement on the arrest, accused the Trump administration of repeatedly utilizing “dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level.”
“I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law,” he stated.
Court docket papers recommend Dugan was alerted to the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers within the courthouse by her clerk, who was knowledgeable by an legal professional that they gave the impression to be within the hallway.
The FBI affidavit describes Dugan as “visibly angry” over the arrival of immigration brokers within the courthouse and says that she pronounced the scenario “absurd” earlier than leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers. It says she and one other choose later approached members of the arrest workforce contained in the courthouse, displaying what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor.”
After a back-and-forth with officers over the warrant for the person, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, she demanded that the arrest workforce converse with the chief choose and led them away from the courtroom, the affidavit says.
After directing the arrest workforce to the chief choose’s workplace, investigators say, Dugan returned to the courtroom and was heard saying phrases to the impact of “wait, come with me” earlier than ushering Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer via a jury door right into a personal space of the courthouse. The motion was uncommon, the affidavit says, as a result of “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”
An indication that remained posted on Dugan’s courtroom door Friday suggested that if any legal professional or different court docket official “knows or believes that a person feels unsafe coming to the courthouse to courtroom 615,” they need to notify the clerk and request an look through Zoom.
Flores-Ruiz, 30, was in Dugan’s court docket for a listening to after being charged with three counts of misdemeanor home battery. Confronted by a roommate for enjoying loud music on March 12, Flores-Ruiz allegedly fought with him within the kitchen and struck a lady who tried to interrupt them up, based on the police affidavit within the case.
One other girl who tried to interrupt up the struggle and known as police allegedly acquired elbowed within the arm by Flores-Ruiz.
Flores-Ruiz faces as much as 9 months in jail and a $10,000 positive on every depend if convicted. His public defender, Alexander Kostal, didn’t instantly return a telephone message Friday searching for remark.
A federal choose, the identical one Dugan would seem earlier than a day later, had ordered Thursday that Flores-Ruiz stay jailed pending trial. Flores-Ruiz had been within the U.S. since reentering the nation after he was deported in 2013, based on court docket paperwork.
Legal professional Common Pam Bondi stated victims had been sitting within the courtroom with state prosecutors when the choose helped him escape immigration arrest.
“The rule of law is very simple,” she stated in a video posted on X. “It doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in. If you break the law, we will follow the facts and we will prosecute you.”
Anna Moneymaker through Getty Photos
White Home officers echoed the sentiment of nobody being above the regulation.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who represents Wisconsin, known as the arrest of a sitting choose a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the separation of energy between the chief and judicial branches.
Emilio De Torre, government director of Milwaukee Turners, stated throughout an earlier protest Friday afternoon exterior the federal courthouse that Dugan was a former board member for the native civic group who “was certainly trying to make sure that due process is not disrupted and that the sanctity of the courts is upheld.”
“Sending armed FBI and ICE agents into buildings like this will intimidate individuals showing up to court to pay fines, to deal with whatever court proceedings they may have,” De Torre added.
The case is just like one introduced in the course of the first Trump administration in opposition to a Massachusetts choose, who was accused of serving to a person sneak out a again door of a courthouse to evade a ready immigration enforcement agent.
That prosecution sparked outrage from many within the authorized group, who slammed the case as politically motivated. Prosecutors dropped the case in opposition to Newton District Choose Shelley Joseph in 2022 underneath the Democratic Biden administration after she agreed to refer herself to a state company that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.
The Justice Division had beforehand signaled that it was going to crack down on native officers who thwart federal immigration efforts.
The division in January ordered prosecutors to examine for potential prison expenses any state and native officers who impede or impede federal capabilities. As potential avenues for prosecution, a memo cited a conspiracy offense in addition to a regulation prohibiting the harboring of individuals within the nation illegally.
Dugan was elected in 2016 to the county court docket Department 31. She additionally has served within the court docket’s probate and civil divisions, based on her judicial candidate biography.
Earlier than being elected to public workplace, Dugan practiced at Authorized Motion of Wisconsin and the Authorized Support Society. She graduated from the College of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 with a bachelor of arts diploma and earned her Juris Doctorate in 1987 from the varsity.
Richer reported from Washington. Related Press reporters Eric Tucker in Washington, Corey Williams in Detroit and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.
