Judge orders ICE chief to Minnesota court over Trump’s immigration crackdown

The chief federal judge in Minnesota says the Trump administration has failed to comply with orders to hold hearings for detained immigrants and ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to appear before him on Friday to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt.

In an order dated Monday, Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, must appear personally in court. Schlitz took the administration to task over its handling of bond hearings for immigrants it has detained.

“This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result,” the judge wrote.

The order comes a day after US President Donald Trump ordered border czar Tom Homan to take over his administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota following the second death this month of person at the hands of an immigration law enforcement officer.

It also follows a federal court hearing on Monday on a request by the state and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul for a judge to order a halt to the immigration law enforcement surge. The judge said she was prioritizing the ruling but didn’t give a timeline.

Schlitz wrote that he recognises ordering the head of a federal agency to appear personally is extraordinary. “But the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed,” Schlitz wrote.