We’re getting some more troubling information right now. This morning, in a development that has ignited national controversy, federal agents under the Trump Administration arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan today on charges stemming from a tense courtroom encounter involving immigration enforcement. The charge are raising alarms among legal experts, immigrant advocates, and judicial independence watchdogs.
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At the center of the incident is an alleged effort by Judge Dugan to manage a courtroom scenario involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who arrived seeking custody of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a non-citizen defendant present in her courtroom. However, the agents reportedly did not have a criminal warrant, only a civil “administrative warrant”—a distinction that may prove critical in the legal and constitutional debate now unfolding.
According to reports, ICE agents appeared in Judge Dugan’s courtroom to detain Flores-Ruiz but were confronted with a firm procedural response. Judge Dugan requested a judicial criminal warrant—standard for arrests within a courtroom—but agents admitted they did not have one. Instead of complying with the ICE request, Dugan directed the agents to speak with the chief judge to resolve the matter.
Meanwhile, she allowed Flores-Ruiz to leave through a staff-only door, a decision that appears to have prompted the obstruction charge. ICE agents apprehended him moments later outside the courthouse.
Observers note that the arrest of a sitting judge over such actions is virtually unprecedented. The civil administrative warrant carried by ICE lacks the same legal authority as a criminal warrant and does not authorize entry into private spaces—or courtrooms—without permission. Judges across the country have increasingly resisted ICE efforts to conduct arrests in courthouses, citing the chilling effect on immigrant participation in the justice system.
Judge Dugan has since been released and her next court case is on May 15th. More to come soon—I won’t stop until the full truth is exposed.
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