The top lawyer at the Homeland Security Department has doubled down on the department’s dispute with a federal judge, labeling her an “activist” and claiming that the Trump administration was justified when it withheld information from her in an immigration case.
Melissa R. DuBose, a federal judge in Rhode Island, referred an administration lawyer for possible discipline last week after he acknowledged that he had failed to inform her that Bryan Rafael Gomez, a migrant she was preparing to release from detention, was facing homicide charges in the Dominican Republic.
But according to James Percival, the general counsel at the Homeland Security Department, it was Judge DuBose who engaged in misconduct. In a defiant column published on Tuesday night by The Federalist, a conservative website, Mr. Percival leveled a raft of charges against her, including that she lacked “any plausible basis to review Mr. Gomez’s custody status,” something that judges have done in hundreds of similar cases across the country.
The back-and-forth was the latest front in a continuing skirmish between the administration and the federal judiciary.
Since President Trump returned to office, the White House and its allies have frequently engaged in heated, personal attacks on judges who have ruled against their agenda, which has coincided with a spike in threats against federal judges.
In the case of Judge DuBose, who was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2024, the dispute began in April, when police in Worcester, Mass., arrested Mr. Gomez on charges of assault and turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings.
His lawyer then filed a petition in federal court, arguing that he should be released in advance of a bond hearing because the Trump administration policy of arresting undocumented immigrants and holding them without bond misinterpreted the law and violated his constitutional rights. Both issues are currently being litigated by courts nationwide.
At that point, an internal email obtained by The New York Times shows, a lawyer for ICE instructed Kevin M. Bolan, a Justice Department lawyer preparing to appear before Judge DuBose, that he should withhold information about the international charges from the judge. The email has not been previously reported.
“Please do not confirm or deny the existence” of the overseas arrest warrant, wrote the ICE lawyer, Adam E. Mattei, in the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor. “There has yet to be any use authorization for this information.”
But after Judge DuBose ordered Mr. Gomez released while he awaited court proceedings on the assault charge, the Homeland Security Department issued a news release calling her an “activist Biden Judge” who had released a “violent criminal illegal alien.”
Judge DuBose then issued an angry order demanding an explanation for why she was not informed of “facts relevant” to the case. The omission “threatens public safety and erodes trust in the rule of law,” she wrote.
Mr. Bolan subsequently apologized to Judge DuBose, saying in a court filing that he had been told by ICE that he should withhold the information for what he believed was a legitimate law enforcement reason. He also said that his Justice Department colleagues had asked the Homeland Security Department to take its news release down and had been rebuffed.
Judge DuBose nevertheless referred Mr. Bolan for possible disciplinary proceedings citing a “lack of candor.”
In his column on Tuesday, Mr. Percival claimed that the initial news release reflected “legitimate debate regarding a judge’s ruling.” He went on to accuse Judge DuBose of “a nakedly political public affairs campaign” intended “to intimidate federal employees so they would stop criticizing a co-equal branch of government.”
The court declined to comment on Mr. Percival’s allegations. Instead, it referred to a previous statement from its chief deputy clerk, who called the news release “deeply troubling” and “wholly inappropriate.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Rhode Island did not respond to a request for comment.
The administration has repeatedly accused judges of being political, in some cases mischaracterizing their rulings. In others, Mr. Trump’s allies have shared the personal details and online profiles of judges’ family members on social media.
Many federal judges have asked the administration to stop targeting individual judges, even when it disagrees with their ruling. In public remarks at a judicial conference in Hershey, Pa., last week, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said personalized criticism of judges as individuals as opposed to their rulings is “not appropriate.”
Anyone who believes a federal judge has engaged in misconduct can file a complaint with the appellate court that oversees the judge’s district. When asked if Mr. Percival planned to file a complaint against Judge DuBose, a department spokesman responded by resending a link to his column.
Judge DuBose is the first Black person and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person to serve on Rhode Island’s federal bench. She previously served in the state’s attorney general’s office and later as a state judge.
Once informed of the international criminal charges, Judge DuBose ordered that Mr. Gomez be detained again. Law enforcement has since told the court that they cannot find him.
In an interview, Melanie Shapiro, a lawyer representing Mr. Gomez, said the content and validity of the arrest warrant for her client from the Dominican Republican were “still unverified,” and that Mr. Gomez had stopped returning her text messages and calls.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
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