Politics
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April 25, 2025
Trump’s escalation within the battle between the courts and his administration despatched shock waves via Milwaukee and past.
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Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025.
(Mandel Ngan / Getty)
Milwaukee—The stunning resolution by Trump administration authorities to order the arrest of a veteran Wisconsin jurist on Friday morning on the Milwaukee County Courthouse—primarily based on claims that she may need briefly helped an immigrant keep away from arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers—is being denounced by authorized students and elected officers in Wisconsin and nationally. Decried as an “outrageous” abuse of energy, the arrest, argue critics like Milwaukee County Government David Crowley, reveals that “Trump’s FBI is extra involved about weaponizing federal legislation enforcement, punishing folks with out due course of, and intimidating anybody who opposes these insurance policies than they’re with searching for justice.”
“Make no mistake, we shouldn’t have kings on this nation and we’re a democracy ruled by legal guidelines that everybody should abide by,” declared Wisconsin Democratic US Senator Tammy Baldwin, who referred to as the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court docket Decide Hannah Dugan “a gravely critical and drastic transfer that threatens to breach the (nation’s constitutionally outlined) separations of energy.”
“By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court docket orders, and arresting a sitting decide, this president is placing these fundamental democratic values that Wisconsinites maintain pricey on the road,” mentioned Baldwin, who added, “Whereas particulars of this precise case stay minimal, this motion matches into the deeply regarding sample of this president’s lawless habits and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his energy.”
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US Consultant Gwen Moore, a Democrat who represents Milwaukee within the US Home, mentioned, “Federal legislation enforcement coming right into a group and arresting a decide is a critical matter and would require a excessive authorized bar. I might be following this case intently, and information will come out; nonetheless, I’m very alarmed on the more and more lawless actions of the Trump administration, and particularly ICE, who’ve been defying court docket orders and appearing with disregard for the Structure.”
As information of the arrest unfold to Washington, Maryland Consultant Jamie Raskin, who taught constitutional legislation for many years and now serves because the rating Democrat on the Home Judiciary Committee, mentioned, “It’s outstanding that the administration would dare to start out arresting state court docket judges. It’s an entire new descent into authorities chaos.”
Consultant Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who can be a Judiciary Committee member, mentioned there ought to “completely” be a federal inquiry into the decide’s arrest. “On the face of it,” defined Balint, “that is harmful and outrageous, and it’s designed to intimidate our judiciary.”
Decide Dugan, a fixture within the Wisconsin authorized group for greater than three many years and who has served as a jurist since 2016, was charged with two federal felonies (obstruction and concealing a person) for allegedly serving to an undocumented immigrant keep away from arrest after he appeared in her courtroom.
The decide’s arrest despatched shock waves via Milwaukee, a multiracial, multiethnic city heart with a number of giant immigrant communities, and drew worldwide consideration to what the AFP newswire described as the escalation of a “rising battle between the White Home and courts over President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation insurance policies.”
On the bottom in Milwaukee, there was appreciable consternation, particularly after Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel posted after which deleted a Friday morning assertion on X that claimed, “Simply NOW, the FBI arrested Decide Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on expenses of obstruction—after proof of Decide Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation final week. We imagine Decide Dugan deliberately misdirected federal brokers away from the topic to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, permitting the topic—an unlawful alien—to evade arrest.”
Lawyer Common Pam Bondi later introduced on X that “our @FBI brokers simply arrested Hannah Dugan—a county decide in Milwaukee—for allegedly serving to an unlawful alien keep away from an arrest by @ICEgov.” Bondi referred to judges who problem the agenda of the Trump administration as “deranged” and promised such jurists: “We are going to come after you and we’ll prosecute you. We are going to discover you.”
Decide Dugan, a former govt director of Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin and a former president of the Milwaukee Bar Affiliation, was not laborious to search out. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that FBI brokers arrested the decide after she arrived on the county courthouse. On Friday morning, she appeared earlier than a federal Justice of the Peace, and he or she was rapidly launched on bond. Her lawyer, US Lawyer Steven Biskupic, who served underneath Republican President George W. Bush, introduced that Decide Dugan will “defend herself vigorously and appears to be exonerated.”
The Milwaukee paper reported that Flores-Ruiz had appeared earlier than Decide Dugan on April 18, for a pretrial convention on misdemeanor battery expenses. Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old immigrant from Mexico, was arrested the identical day and is presently in ICE custody at a detention facility in Juneau, Wisconsin.
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It seems that the Trump administration is worried that, after confronting ICE brokers concerning the legitimacy of their warrant, Decide Dugan instructed Flores-Ruiz to depart her courtroom by going “down a non-public hallway and into the general public space on the sixth ground” of the courthouse. ICE brokers finally arrested him outdoors.
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The Journal Sentinel consulted with 5 authorized specialists, together with former prosecutors and located, “None thought Dugan’s actions constituted a federal crime.” The paper additionally famous, “All 5 authorized students mentioned ICE’s presence in state courthouses may negatively impression public security by scaring folks away from utilizing the courthouse for regular actions.”
A bunch of Milwaukee legislators, together with Democratic state senators Chris Larson and Tim Carpenter, picked up on that theme after they mentioned in an announcement issued Friday, “The county courthouse is a sanctuary for justice and peace the place the accused come ahead willingly in a good and unbiased course of. Arresting folks out of a courtroom will result in a breakdown of civil society. We don’t help the presence of ICE in locations the place it is going to result in intimidation of witnesses and victims of crimes, denying everybody concerned the justice they deserve.”
Crowley, the Milwaukee County govt, summed up native sentiments when he mentioned, “It’s clear that the FBI is politicizing this case to make an instance of her and others throughout the nation who oppose their assault on the judicial system and our nation’s immigration legal guidelines.”
Crowley add that he was “extraordinarily involved concerning the Trump administration’s continued intention to instill concern and hostility throughout our group.”
US Consultant Mark Pocan (D-WI) was blunter. “The Trump administration once more is breaking norms in the way it’s coping with immigration, the authorized system, and normalcy,” mentioned Pocan. “That is stuff I anticipate from Third World nations.”
The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows every week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world financial system and arrange yet one more constitutional disaster at house. Plainclothes officers proceed to abduct college college students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown overseas to a mega jail towards the orders of the courts. And Signalgate guarantees to be the primary of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence on the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, highly effective legislation companies, and influential media retailers are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is extra decided than ever earlier than to carry the highly effective to account.
In simply the final month, we’ve revealed reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to different nations, uncovered the administration’s enchantment to obscure legal guidelines to hold out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of courageous pupil activists focused by universities.
We additionally proceed to inform the tales of those that combat again towards Trump and Musk, whether or not on the streets in rising protest actions, on the town halls throughout the nation, or in crucial state elections—like Wisconsin’s current state Supreme Court docket race—that present a mannequin for resisting Trumpism and show that Musk can’t purchase our democracy.
That is the journalism that issues in 2025. However we will’t do that with out you. As a reader-supported publication, we depend on the help of beneficiant donors. Please, assist make our important unbiased journalism attainable with a donation immediately.
In solidarity,
The Editors
The Nation
John Nichols
John Nichols is a nationwide affairs correspondent for The Nation. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on subjects starting from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Get together to analyses of US and international media programs. His newest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Instances bestseller It is OK to Be Offended About Capitalism.
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