“The Court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt—again and again and again—to force the United States government to comply with court orders.”
So wrote Judge Schiltz, the chief federal judge for Minnesota in an order last week. (He is a George W. Bush appointee, considered a conservative.) It was another in a series of increasingly frustrated and irate orders from judges there who have seen ICE defy their rulings over and over.
Last month, the same judge ordered acting ICE director Todd Lyons to appear before him to explain why ICE had refused to comply with his order in one specific case. The following day, ICE released the immigrant in question, so the judge canceled the hearing. But he still published a list, “hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges,” of 96 instances of ICE violating court orders—just in Minnesota, just since January 1. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” he wrote.
Judge Schiltz wrote an update last week. ICE has violated an additional 113 court orders since he released the first list.
He is not alone. Yesterday, Minnesota’s top DOJ official and several ICE officials were compelled to appear before US District Judge Jeffrey Bryan to “show cause” why they shouldn’t be held in contempt for defying his orders. (The government has repeatedly failed to return the confiscated property of immigrants ruled to have been illegally detained in 28 cases.)
On Monday of last week, another judge (Trump-appointed) held administration officials in contempt after they defied a court order barring them from removing a man from Minnesota. They transported him to Texas, where they released him—but did not return any of his belongings.
Also last week, yet another judge held a US Attorney in contempt after his client (the Trump administration) released yet another man in Texas (whom they’d arrested in Minnesota) without returning his identification documents. She imposed a $500 fine per day for each day the government failed to return his documents. (Miraculously, after this, the government quickly did so, and the attorney was not fined.)
Last month, a Trump-appointed judge in Minnesota ruled that ICE had committed a mass violation of detainees’ rights (effectively blocking their access to counsel) in a sharply-worded order. “The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.”
This isn’t only happening in Minnesota. In late January, when ICE moved a detainee to Texas five days after he had prohibited them from taking the man out of the state, New Jersey federal judge Michael Farbiarz ordered ICE to investigate itself, and provide him with a detailed list of each time it had “violated an order issued by a judge of this district” since December 5. Last month, ICE returned with its answer, under oath. It had violated court orders 56 times, in two months, in just that district of New Jersey.
Earlier this week in West Virginia, a federal judge blasted ICE for systematically violating the Fifth Amendment. He ordered the release of a detainee whose due process rights they had violated, and noted that the case was one of 17 such cases he’d received in a single week. “The Government continues to wrongfully detain those petitioners without due process,” he wrote. He said that “if systematic violations continue despite repeated judicial findings of unconstitutionality,” he would impose “legal consequences.” “This court will enforce the Constitution.”
In June, DHS issued a new policy requiring members of Congress to provide seven days’ notice before visiting ICE detention facilities—in direct opposition to federal law. They followed through, denying entry to ICE facilities to members of Congress in California, multiple times at another location in California, and in Colorado. So, in July, twelve members of the House of Representatives sued ICE for denying them access in violation of the law. In December, they won the lawsuit: a judge agreed and blocked ICE from enforcing their policy.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem responded by simply reinstating the policy, this time claiming new funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill allows her to get around the federal law. When members of Congress were again denied access, they went back to court to force Kristi Noem and ICE to obey the law. On Feb 2, a judge issued a TRO (temporary restraining order) barring DHS from enforcing Noem’s reinstated policy. Later that same day, Noem issued a memo reinstituting the illegal policy the judge had just blocked—the same illegal policy that had already been blocked weeks before.
On Monday, a federal judge ruled for the third time that ICE may not restrict members of Congress from inspecting ICE facilities; it is a violation of the law. ICE immediately appealed. (You may be wondering why they are so hellbent on preventing our representatives from seeing the conditions in their detainment facilities. See my previous article for the apparent reason.)
Noem has heard her boss loud and clear: if you don’t like a law, you don’t have to follow it. If you don’t like a judge’s order, you can ignore it. As Judge Boasberg wrote last month in a ruling ordering the Trump administration to return to the US Venezuelans whose due process rights it had flagrantly violated, “…the Government’s responses essentially told the Court to pound sand.”
Defiance of our laws and contempt for court orders did not start with the leadership of ICE, or even DHS—they wouldn’t dare, not without support from higher up. It’s coming from the top down.
In June, a former DOJ lawyer with a shining career there, Erez Reuveni, sent a whistleblower letter to the Chairs of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. (This was the attorney who honestly informed a court that Kilmar Abrego-Garcia’s illegal deportation had been a mistake. Furious, his superiors ordered him to file a brief contradicting his truthful statement. He refused, and was fired.) Direct quotes from the whistleblower letter include:
“These high-level governmental personnel knowingly and willfully defied court orders…”
“Discouraging clients from engaging in illegal conduct is an important part of the role of a lawyer. Mr. Reuveni tried to do so and was thwarted, threatened, fired, and publicly disparaged for both doing his job and telling the truth to the court.”
And most shockingly, at a meeting in March about deportation flights to El Salvador that the administration worried might be blocked by judges, the Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove (formerly Trump’s personal defense lawyer), told a stunned room that “DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order.” (Trump has since nominated Bove to a federal judgeship.)
The letter goes on to detail specific instances in which Mr. Reuveni directly witnessed DOJ and DHS officials defying court orders, lying in court, and ordering him to lie in court.
Reuveni provided internal DOJ messages to Congress which supported his claims, and a second DOJ whistleblower also came forward with similar claims. So, as explosive as these reports are, objective observers can be confident that they’re true.
Anyone who claims to care about law and order should be disgusted by all of this. We ought to be able to trust the DHS and its agencies to understand and follow the law, judges’ orders, and especially the Constitution. But we can’t. Not right now.
People of good faith who care about enforcing our laws—all of them—can and should oppose ICE as it exists today.
What can we do?
Keep the faith. This agency’s unpopularity continues to grow, with a landmark poll just yesterday showing for the first time that fully half of Americans want ICE abolished altogether. Nearly one in four Republicans support abolishing ICE. Keep speaking out, keep pressure on your MOCs, and keep the faith. As we’ve seen, the judiciary is holding the line. This lawlessness cannot last forever.
Wilderness Dispatch 