Left: Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz (U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota). Right: President Donald Trump listens during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
In a display of growing impatience, Minnesota’s chief federal judge has threatened the Trump administration with criminal contempt charges for repeatedly ignoring court orders related to immigration cases. This ongoing defiance shows no sign of resolution.
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, appointed by George W. Bush, issued a six-page rebuke on Thursday, highlighting the mounting frustration among federal judges. These judges have persistently directed ICE to conduct bond hearings or release detainees, only to find their orders disregarded.
On the same day, a federal judge in New Jersey criticized the U.S. Attorney’s Office, formerly under Alina Habba, for its “objectively appalling” and repeated disregard for court orders in mandatory detention cases, echoing similar frustrations.
Judge Schiltz had previously condemned these issues, which came to a head during a Minnesota hearing where Department of Justice attorneys were admonished for failing to comply with court directives following “Operation Metro Surge.”
During one session, an overwhelmed attorney made headlines by admitting her lack of training to handle the influx of habeas corpus petitions in federal court, bluntly stating “this job sucks.”
While Judge Schiltz expressed some understanding of the challenges faced by government lawyers dealing with heavy caseloads and resource shortages amidst a wave of resignations, he firmly declared that these difficulties do not justify the roughly 200 court order violations that continue to accumulate.
The judge, noting that the courts themselves continue to “be overwhelmed with the legal work created by Operation Metro Surge,” emphasized that jurists have actually been “extraordinarily patient” and that neither judges nor lawyers “deserve” the “impossible” situation DOJ “superiors” have unleashed.
“The judges of this District have been extraordinarily patient with the government attorneys, recognizing that they have been put in an impossible position by [U.S. Attorney Daniel] Rosen and his superiors in the Department of Justice (leading many of those attorneys—including, unfortunately, Ana Voss—to resign),” Schiltz remarked. “What those attorneys ‘didn’t deserve’ was the Administration sending 3000 ICE agents to Minnesota to detain people without making any provision for handling the hundreds of lawsuits that were sure to follow.”
By Schiltz’s count, ICE has violated 210 court orders, and “[i]f anything is ‘beyond the pale’” it’s that. Not seeing civil contempt threats as sufficient to enforce government compliance, the judge opened the door to criminal contempt — and he is not the first judge to do so.
“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,” Schiltz added. “This Court will continue to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law, including, if necessary, moving to the use of criminal contempt. One way or another, ICE will comply with this Court’s orders.”
Read the filing in full here.
