US federal agents on Friday arrested a judge for allegedly shielding an undocumented migrant, escalating a struggle between the White House and courts over US President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation policies.
Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County circuit judge, allegedly “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject” whom agents were intending to detain at her courthouse, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X.
She was arrested on charges of obstruction, Patel said.
Photo: Reuters
“Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot, and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” he said.
The Trump-appointed director deleted his post minutes after it appeared, but later reposted it.
Later on Friday, Patel wrote: “No one is above the law,” accompanied by a photo of a handcuffed person being led to an unmarked vehicle with tinted windows. The image is taken from behind, and the only faces in the photo have been blurred out.
“From the bench to the backseat. This is what accountability looks like,” wrote Donald Trump Jr, who shared the post, suggesting the handcuffed person was Dugan.
The incident has set off a torrent of criticism by Democrats and applause by some Republicans.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who oversees the FBI, defended the arrest of Dugan, and issued a warning to those who might harbor illegal aliens: “We will find you.”
“We’re sending a very strong message today,” Bondi told Fox News. “If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are, if you are helping hide one ... anyone who is illegally in this country — we will come after you and we will prosecute you.”
COURT APPEARENCE
Charging documents described an incident at Dugan’s courthouse on April 18 during which the judge was “visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor” when federal agents came to arrest the migrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz from Mexico, who was facing misdemeanor charges.
The complaint said Dugan escorted Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom through a door used by jury members in order to keep him from the agents.
Dugan, who was elected to the bench in 2016, appeared in court on Friday before a judge in the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee, where she made no public comments, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Her attorney Craig Mastantuono told the court: “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety.”
A number of federal and state judges across the US have issued rulings that put several of Trump’s executive actions on hold, particularly related to his bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants.
DEMOCRAT
The Trump administration has been butting heads with federal judges, rights groups and Democrats who say he has trampled or ignored constitutionally enshrined rights in rushing to deport migrants, sometimes without the right to a hearing.
US Representative Darren Soto blasted the Dugan arrest as “third world country dictator type of stuff.”
“Everyday they get more desperate,” he wrote on X. “This will be bounced out of court as quick as the rest of their illegal actions.”
Speaking to broadcaster MSNBC on Friday night, US Representative Jamie Raskin said the Trump administration has spent the past month waging “an intense assault on judicial independence.”
REPUBLICAN
However, several Republicans rushed to Patel’s defense. “The corruption and determination of these anti-American activist judges to put illegal aliens ahead of American citizens is appalling,” US Representative Diana Harshbarger said. “Thankfully, a stand is being taken against them.”
DEPORTATION BATTLES
On Thursday, a former county magistrate judge in New Mexico and his wife were taken into custody after federal agents raided their home over their harboring of an alleged undocumented migrant who investigators said was a member of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, US media reported.
The Trump administration has dug in its heels over deportation cases in which legal experts and Democrats said residents are being expelled without due process.
The White House has defied the US Supreme Court’s ruling that the administration must “facilitate” the return of a Maryland resident who was deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Bondi said the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is “not coming back” to the US.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS