WILL JUDGE DUGAN BECOME THE NEXT HERO OF THE RESISTANCE? The Trump administration’s campaign against sanctuary jurisdictions took a big step forward on Friday when federal agents arrested a county judge in Milwaukee after the judge allegedly helped an illegal immigrant accused of multiple crimes hide from federal immigration officials who had come to detain him.
The judge is Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan. The illegal immigrant is Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. According to court documents, Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican, came illegally to the United States more than a dozen years ago. Immigration authorities issued a final removal order for him in January 2013. He was deported but at some point reentered the U.S. illegally. Now, he is still in the U.S. illegally, and he is also charged with domestic violence — three counts known as battery-domestic abuse-infliction of physical pain or injury.
By the way, apart from the current crimes he is accused of, crossing into the U.S. illegally is punishable by up to six months in prison. Doing it again after being deported is punishable by up to two years behind bars.
Here is what happened on April 18 in the Milwaukee County Courthouse, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent in the case. Flores-Ruiz was scheduled to have a pretrial hearing in the domestic violence case. When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials heard about it, they decided to go there with an arrest warrant for Flores-Ruiz that would surely result in his deportation.
Six agents, all dressed in plain clothes, went to the courthouse. They hit their first snag when they identified themselves as federal agents to the security guard at the entrance. They got in after a delay, and then a sheriff’s office sergeant asked them to wait until Flores-Ruiz’s hearing before Dugan was over before arresting him. The ICE team agreed and went to the hallway outside the courtroom. Hallways in the courthouse are considered public areas.
The agents then told the courtroom workers inside what they intended to do after the hearing. The courtroom deputy told the agents that he had to notify a shift sergeant. The agents went to wait outside in the hall. While they were there, a lawyer with the Wisconsin Public Defenders Office walked up and took pictures of them.
When Flores-Ruiz arrived, the ICE team watched him enter the courtroom. It was about that time that Dugan learned of the ICE agents’ presence — she was apparently told by the public defender who took the photos moments earlier. “Judge Dugan became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers,” the affidavit said. Then Dugan and another judge, both wearing their judicial robes, “approached members of the arrest team in the public hallway.” Dugan, “visibly upset” and displaying “a confrontational, angry demeanor,” ordered the ICE team to report to the chief judge’s office. The other judge escorted them down the hall to the office.
While the ICE team was stuck showing their credentials to the chief judge’s clerk, Dugan stormed down the hall and went into a nonpublic entrance to her chambers. When Dugan returned to the courtroom, Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer, who had been talking to a clerk, “walked toward each other and toward the public courtroom exit. That is when Dugan said, “Wait, come with me” and escorted Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer “out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” according to the affidavit. What Dugan did was “unusual,” the affidavit said, in part because “according to the courtroom deputy, only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”
After escorting Flores-Ruiz out the door, Dugan returned to the courtroom and conducted other hearings. As time went by, the prosecuting attorney wondered why Flores-Ruiz’s case had not been called. The attorney then learned that the Flores-Ruiz case had been adjourned, even though prosecutors were there and ready to go and the “victims were present in the courtroom.”
After Dugan helped Flores-Ruiz give ICE the slip, he headed toward the elevators. But one of the agents saw him leaving and alerted the rest of the arrest team. Flores-Ruiz and his attorney reached the ground floor and left the building. By then, the ICE team was scrambling after him. “After DEA Agent A notified the team that Flores-Ruiz was in the front of the courthouse near the flagpole, the agents ran towards the front of the courthouse,” the affidavit said. “FBI Agent B and DEA Agent A approached Flores-Ruiz and identified themselves as law enforcement. Flores-Ruiz turned around and sprinted down the street. A foot chase ensued. The agents pursued Flores-Ruiz for the entire length of the courthouse and ultimately apprehended him near the intersection of W. State Street and 10th Street. Flores-Ruiz was handcuffed and detained.”
So what about the judge? Based on the facts laid out in the affidavit, prosecutors charged Dugan with “obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States” and “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest,” both felonies. Meanwhile, Flores-Ruiz is in ICE custody.
And now the politics begins. According to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel account, “As word of Dugan’s arrest spread, about two dozen protesters linked arms in front of the courthouse, chanting ‘No justice, no peace. Let the judge be released.’ Some waved American flags. One protester held a sign that read ‘Only Fascists Arrest Judges.'” It seems likely the crowds will grow into Friday night and the weekend.
Meanwhile, anger is building among national Democratic figures. “Let’s be clear,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said. “Trump’s arrest of Judge Dugan in Milwaukee has nothing to do with immigration. It has everything to do with his moving this country toward authoritarianism.” From Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): “It’s a whole new descent into government chaos.” From Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI): Trump’s “relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge … fits into the deeply concerning pattern of this president’s lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his power.”
Here’s the thing. We know who the villain is, but who are Democrats going to make the hero in this story? The answer, of course, seems to be Dugan — but remember, all this was done on behalf of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. Will Dugan be called a hero for protecting an already-deported-and-illegally-returned accused domestic abuser from federal authorities? That might be a hard sell.
It’s similar to the problem Democrats face in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. With that, Democrats have argued that even if Abrego Garcia is a gang member, which they still deny, the case is really about due process and everyone’s rights in America. In the Milwaukee case, they’ll certainly try to make it about due process again. But people might still ask: Why should a judge of all people obstruct federal agents and the enforcement of immigration law when the facts in the case seem so clear-cut?