A federal judge in Minnesota on Monday ordered Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons to appear personally in court this week, warning that he could be held in contempt over what the judge described as repeated failures by the Trump administration to comply with court orders in immigration cases.
In a Monday evening order, Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz directed Lyons to testify in person at a Friday hearing in Minneapolis concerning the detention of Juan Tobay Robles, who was arrested by federal immigration agents earlier this month amid the administration’s Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities.
Schiltz said the Trump administration failed to comply with a Jan. 14 order requiring ICE to either provide Tobay Robles with a bond hearing within seven days or release him from custody. According to the judge, neither occurred.
“This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in a three-page order issued Monday night.
He added that the court’s patience had run out, saying that while ordering the head of a federal agency to appear personally is an extraordinary step, ICE’s conduct warranted it, in his view.
“The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step,” Schiltz wrote. “But the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed.”
The hearing is scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. Schiltz ordered Lyons to “appear in person to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of Court” for violating the court’s Jan. 14 order.
The judge notably said the hearing would be canceled only if the parties file a notice showing that Tobay Robles has been released from custody before Friday. Otherwise, Lyons must attend.
The order comes amid a surge of immigration litigation in Minnesota following President Donald Trump’s rollout of a coordinated enforcement push that has sharply increased immigration arrests in and around Minneapolis.
Federal courts in the state have been flooded in recent weeks with emergency filings from detainees alleging unlawful arrests, prolonged detention, or failure to receive court-ordered bond hearings. Judges have repeatedly ordered ICE to release detainees or comply with strict timelines, according to court records.
Schiltz accused ICE and other Trump administration officials of dragging their feet or defying those directives.
“The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens,” Schiltz wrote, adding that many detainees have “lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Schiltz has also sharply questioned other aspects of the administration’s Minnesota enforcement surge in recent days. In a letter sent Friday to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he pushed back on a Justice Department request seeking appellate intervention after a federal magistrate judge rejected most proposed arrest warrants tied to a protest that targeted worship services at Cities Church in St. Paul earlier this month.
In that case, Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko approved arrest warrants for only three of the eight individuals sought by DOJ prosecutors. The DOJ subsequently asked for a district judge to review Micko’s decision, a move Schiltz described as virtually unheard of in his district.
“If the government does not like the magistrate judge’s decision, it can either improve the affidavit and present it again to the same magistrate judge or it can present its case to a grand jury and seek an indictment,” Schiltz wrote.
The judge cited Tobay Robles’s case as emblematic of broader compliance issues, noting that the failure to provide a bond hearing within the court-ordered seven-day window meant the detainee was now overdue for release.
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While acknowledging the separation-of-powers concerns involved in ordering a senior executive branch official to court, Schiltz said continued noncompliance left him with no alternative.
The Washington Examiner contacted DHS and an attorney for Tobay Robles.