[Source: Reuters]

U.S. officials arrested a Wisconsin judge on Friday and charged her with helping a man in her court briefly evade immigration authorities in an escalating dispute between President Donald Trump’s administration and local officials over immigration enforcement.

In a criminal complaint, the U.S. Justice Department said Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County circuit judge, hindered the immigration agents who showed up to arrest the man without a judicial warrant outside her courtroom on April 18, and that she tried to help him evade arrest by allowing him to exit through a jury door. Agents arrested the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, outside the courthouse after he left with his lawyer.

Dugan appeared briefly at a federal court in Milwaukee to face charges of obstructing a government proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, records show. She was released and is scheduled to enter a plea on May 15. A crowd formed outside the courthouse, chanting: “Free the judge now.”

Dugan left the courthouse through a side door without comment.

“Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated,” a publicity firm said on her behalf.

Trump, a Republican, launched a sweeping immigration crackdown after taking office in January, and the Justice Department has directed federal prosecutors to pursue criminal cases against local officials who interfere with the effort. Such resistance was widespread during Trump’s first 2017-2021 term in office.

“No one, least of all a judge, should obstruct law enforcement operations,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

The Trump administration has been locked in an escalating confrontation with federal judges, as several have issued rulings that limit its aggressive use of presidential power in immigration and other matters. State courts have played a less significant role in that dispute.

FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that agents had arrested Dugan for interfering with the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, whom he described as an “illegal alien.” He later deleted that post, made before the case against Dugan was unsealed in federal court in a possible violation of secrecy rules.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Trump administration “continues to test the limits of our Constitution,” and that when immigration officials “interfere” with the criminal justice system it prevents witnesses and victims from coming forward.

“How does arresting a sitting judge make America any safer?” Durbin said in his statement.

Federal authorities this week also arrested a former New Mexico judge and charged him with evidence tampering, court records show, after a man who authorities allege was linked to a Venezuelan street gang was found living on his property.

The former judge, Joel Cano, was charged alongside his wife Nancy after they allegedly helped the man, who faces illegal gun possession charges, destroy a cellphone believed to contain evidence of him holding firearms, according to a criminal complaint.

Joel Cano was barred by the state supreme court on Tuesday from serving as a judge in the state.

Lawyers for Joel and Nancy Cano did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the Wisconsin case, a criminal complaint alleged Dugan became “visibly angry” and said it was “absurd” when plainclothes immigration agents arrived on April 18, saying they wanted to arrest Flores-Ruiz after he left her court, where he faced misdemeanor battery charges related to domestic abuse.

Speaking in the corridor outside, she asked the agents if they had a judicial warrant for his arrest, and they told her they did not, only an administrative warrant issued by a colleague at the Department of Homeland Security.

Dugan told the agents they needed a judicial warrant to arrest someone inside the courthouse and told them to speak with the chief judge, the complaint said.

She then returned to her courtroom and, after adjourning the hearing, directed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to leave through a door which led to a non-public area of the courthouse, the complaint said. Agents outside approached Flores-Ruiz as he left the courthouse, and arrested him after a chase on foot, about 22 minutes after they first saw him arrive at court.

Carl Ashley, chief judge of the Milwaukee court, declined to comment.

The complaint said Flores-Ruiz had previously been deported to Mexico.

“Since President Trump was inaugurated, activist judges have tried to obstruct President Trump and the American people’s mandate to make America safe and secure our homeland,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, “but this judge’s actions to shield an accused violent criminal illegal alien from justice is shocking and shameful.”

Dugan was first elected as a county judge in 2016 and before that served as head of the local branch of Catholic Charities, which provides refugee resettlement programs among other services. She spent much of her early career as a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, which serves poor people.

During Trump’s first 2017-2021 term, federal prosecutors brought criminal charges against a Massachusetts judge accused of impeding a federal immigration arrest of a defendant in her courtroom. Those charges were dropped in 2022, when Trump was out of office.

Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor now at the University of Michigan Law School, said judges have no special immunity but prosecutors should consider the impact on the U.S. federal system, which allows states to enforce their own laws.

“This seems like a very aggressive exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” she said.

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