Dozens of judges have demanded that lawyers representing President Donald Trump’s administration explain why the government shouldn’t be held in contempt for failing to follow court orders involving detained migrants.
A new review by The New York Times found at least 35 cases since August where a federal district court or magistrate judge issued a so-called “show cause” order requiring the government to explain why it shouldn’t be punished for violating the orders.
The show cause order is basically the government’s last chance to explain itself before being held in contempt.
The spike in the orders is proof that judges are getting angry with officials as they try to determine whether the violations are intentional or an unfortunate by-product of a legal system that has been overwhelmed by Trump’s mass deportation agenda, according to the Times.
“We’re at a moment where the courts are trying to figure out whether the Trump administration is systematically ignoring court orders, or whether it’s a function of overload plus incompetence plus an attitude of disrespect,” Harvard law professor Noah Feldman told the Times.
Both publicly and privately, some of the leadership at Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice have signaled the department is not overly concerned with following court orders, the Times noted.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, a DOJ spokesperson blamed Joe Biden’s administration and “rogue judges” for the overwhelming caseloads.
“If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Government’s obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldn’t be an ‘overwhelming’ habeas caseload or concern over the [Department of Homeland Security] following orders,” the statement said.
It added that the number of people being detained by ICE is “a direct result of this Administration’s strong border security policies to keep the American people safe.”
Judges, however, are getting fed up after weeks of false testimony, shoddy legal arguments, and failure to comply with court orders, according to the Times.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, a Biden appointee, blasted the Trump administration for its mandatory detention policy, which has been struck down in more than 1,600 cases and has led to a flood of habeas corpus petitions from immigrants saying they’re being wrongfully held.
Administration officials “have chosen to avail themselves of these exact circumstances of which they now complain,” Sykes wrote in a sweeping decision demanding the government follow her previous orders.
Another judge wrote in a scathing ruling that “agents of the federal government—masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind—are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process.”
The practice is “an assault on the constitutional order,” and is exactly what the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was written to prevent, wrote Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, a Clinton appointee.
But last week, a judge took the extraordinary step of holding a military attorney on loan to the DOJ, which has hemorrhaged attorneys since Trump began his mass deportation drive, in civil contempt over the treatment of an immigrant released from ICE custody.
U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino ordered attorney Matthew Isihara to pay a $500 daily fine until identification documents were returned to Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, a legal U.S. resident who was arrested as part of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Isihara apologized to the judge and said the case had fallen through the cracks.
On Thursday, Jimenez’s lawyer received an overnight FedEx package, and the judge lifted her contempt order.
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