Trump’s escalation within the battle between the courts and his administration despatched shock waves via Milwaukee and past.
Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025.
(Mandel Ngan / Getty)
Milwaukee—The surprising determination by Trump administration authorities to order the arrest of a veteran Wisconsin jurist on Friday morning on the Milwaukee County Courthouse—based mostly on claims that she might need briefly helped an immigrant keep away from arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers—is being denounced by authorized students and elected officers in Wisconsin and nationally. Decried as an “outrageous” abuse of energy, the arrest, argue critics like Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, exhibits that “Trump’s FBI is extra involved about weaponizing federal legislation enforcement, punishing individuals with out due course of, and intimidating anybody who opposes these insurance policies than they’re with looking for justice.”
“Make no mistake, we would not have kings on this nation and we’re a democracy ruled by legal guidelines that everybody should abide by,” declared Wisconsin Democratic US Senator Tammy Baldwin, who referred to as the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Courtroom Decide Hannah Dugan “a gravely severe and drastic transfer that threatens to breach the [nation’s constitutionally defined] separations of energy.”
“By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court docket orders, and arresting a sitting choose, this president is placing these primary democratic values that Wisconsinites maintain pricey on the road,” stated Baldwin, who added, “Whereas particulars of this precise case stay minimal, this motion matches into the deeply regarding sample of this president’s lawless habits and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his energy.”
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US Consultant Gwen Moore, a Democrat who represents Milwaukee within the US Home, said, “Federal legislation enforcement coming right into a neighborhood and arresting a choose is a severe matter and would require a excessive authorized bar. I can be following this case intently, and details will come out; nevertheless, I’m very alarmed on the more and more lawless actions of the Trump administration, and specifically ICE, who’ve been defying court docket orders and appearing with disregard for the Structure.”
As information of the arrest unfold to Washington, Maryland Consultant Jamie Raskin, who taught constitutional legislation for many years and now serves because the rating Democrat on the Home Judiciary Committee, stated, “It’s outstanding that the administration would dare to start out arresting state court docket judges. It’s an entire new descent into authorities chaos.”
Consultant Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who can be a Judiciary Committee member, stated there ought to “completely” be a federal inquiry into the choose’s arrest. “On the face of it,” defined Balint, “that is harmful and outrageous, and it’s designed to intimidate our judiciary.”
Decide Dugan, a fixture within the Wisconsin authorized neighborhood for greater than three many years and who has served as a jurist since 2016, was charged with two federal felonies (obstruction and concealing a person) for allegedly serving to an undocumented immigrant keep away from arrest after he appeared in her courtroom.
The choose’s arrest despatched shock waves via Milwaukee, a multiracial, multiethnic city middle with a number of giant immigrant communities, and drew worldwide consideration to what the AFP newswire described as the escalation of a “rising battle between the White Home and courts over President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation insurance policies.”
On the bottom in Milwaukee, there was appreciable consternation, particularly after Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel posted after which deleted a Friday morning assertion on X that claimed, “Simply NOW, the FBI arrested Decide Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on expenses of obstruction—after proof of Decide Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation final week. We consider Decide Dugan deliberately misdirected federal brokers away from the topic to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, permitting the topic—an unlawful alien—to evade arrest.”
Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi later introduced on X that “our @FBI brokers simply arrested Hannah Dugan—a county choose in Milwaukee—for allegedly serving to an unlawful alien keep away from an arrest by @ICEgov.” Bondi referred to judges who problem the agenda of the Trump administration as “deranged” and promised such jurists: “We’ll come after you and we’ll prosecute you. We’ll discover you.”
Decide Dugan, a former govt director of Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin and a former president of the Milwaukee Bar Affiliation, was not laborious to seek out. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that FBI brokers arrested the choose after she arrived on the county courthouse. On Friday morning, she appeared earlier than a federal Justice of the Peace, and he or she was rapidly launched on bond. Her lawyer, US Lawyer Steven Biskupic, who served underneath Republican President George W. Bush, introduced that Decide Dugan will “defend herself vigorously and appears to be exonerated.”
The Milwaukee paper reported that Flores-Ruiz had appeared earlier than Decide Dugan on April 18, for a pretrial convention on misdemeanor battery expenses. Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old immigrant from Mexico, was arrested the identical day and is presently in ICE custody at a detention facility in Juneau, Wisconsin.
It seems that the Trump administration is anxious that, after confronting ICE brokers relating to the legitimacy of their warrant, Decide Dugan instructed Flores-Ruiz to depart her courtroom by going “down a personal hallway and into the general public space on the sixth flooring” of the courthouse. ICE brokers finally arrested him outdoors.
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The Journal Sentinel consulted with 5 authorized specialists, together with former prosecutors and located, “None thought Dugan’s actions constituted a federal crime.” The paper additionally famous, “All 5 authorized students stated ICE’s presence in state courthouses may negatively influence public security by scaring individuals away from utilizing the courthouse for regular actions.”
A gaggle of Milwaukee legislators, together with Democratic state senators Chris Larson and Tim Carpenter, picked up on that theme after they stated in an announcement issued Friday, “The county courthouse is a sanctuary for justice and peace the place the accused come ahead willingly in a good and unbiased course of. Arresting individuals out of a courtroom will result in a breakdown of civil society. We don’t help the presence of ICE in locations the place it would result in intimidation of witnesses and victims of crimes, denying everybody concerned the justice they deserve.”
Crowley, the Milwaukee County govt, summed up native sentiments when he said, “It’s clear that the FBI is politicizing this case to make an instance of her and others throughout the nation who oppose their assault on the judicial system and our nation’s immigration legal guidelines.”
Crowley add that he was “extraordinarily involved concerning the Trump administration’s continued intention to instill concern and hostility throughout our neighborhood.”
US Consultant Mark Pocan (D-WI) was blunter. “The Trump administration once more is breaking norms in the way it’s coping with immigration, the authorized system, and normalcy,” stated Pocan. “That is stuff I anticipate from Third World international locations.”
The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows every week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world financial system and arrange one more constitutional disaster at dwelling. Plainclothes officers proceed to abduct college college students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown overseas to a mega jail in opposition to the orders of the courts. And Signalgate guarantees to be the primary of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence on the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, highly effective legislation companies, and influential media retailers are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is extra decided than ever earlier than to carry the highly effective to account.
In simply the final month, we’ve revealed reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to different international locations, uncovered the administration’s attraction to obscure legal guidelines to hold out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of courageous scholar activists focused by universities.
We additionally proceed to inform the tales of those that struggle again in opposition to Trump and Musk, whether or not on the streets in rising protest actions, on the town halls throughout the nation, or in essential state elections—like Wisconsin’s current state Supreme Courtroom race—that present a mannequin for resisting Trumpism and show that Musk can’t purchase our democracy.
That is the journalism that issues in 2025. However we are able to’t do that with out you. As a reader-supported publication, we depend on the help of beneficiant donors. Please, assist make our important unbiased journalism attainable with a donation at the moment.
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