By Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials arrested a Wisconsin judge on Friday and charged her with helping a man evade immigration authorities in what appeared to be a dispute between President Donald Trump’s administration and local officials over immigration enforcement.
In a criminal complaint, the U.S. Justice Department said Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County circuit judge, refused to turn over the man after immigration agents showed up to arrest him in her courtroom on April 18, and that she tried to help him evade arrest by allowing him to exit through a jury door.
Dugan is charged with obstructing a proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent arrest.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service said Dugan was arrested at the courthouse where she works on Friday morning. She was due to appear in federal court in Milwaukee later on Friday. A crowd formed outside the courthouse, chanting “free the judge now.”
A spokesperson for the FBI could not be immediately reached for comment.
The arrest comes as the Justice Department has directed federal prosecutors to pursue criminal cases against local government officials who interfere with the administration’s immigration crackdown. Such resistance was widespread during Trump’s first 2017-2021 term in office.
FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that the FBI had arrested Dugan for interfering with the attempted arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, whom he described as an “illegal alien” now in custody. He later deleted that post, which he made before the case against Dugan was unsealed in federal court.
Wisconsin court records show that a man by that name who faced misdemeanor battery charges related to domestic abuse appeared in Dugan’s courtroom on April 18.
According to the complaint, Dugan became “visibly angry” and commented that the situation was “absurd” when she discovered that immigration officials were there to arrest Flores-Ruiz.
Dugan ordered the immigration officials to go and speak with the chief judge and then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his attorney through a door which led to a non-public area of the courthouse, the complaint said.
Carl Ashley, chief judge of the Milwaukee court, declined to comment.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, citing sources it did not identify, said Dugan steered Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to a private hallway and into a public area but did not hide the pair in a jury deliberation room as some have accused her of doing.
Trump launched a sweeping immigration crackdown after taking office in January, declaring a national emergency and surging resources in a bid to arrest and deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Dugan was first elected as a county judge in 2016 and before that served as head of the local branch of Catholic Charities, which provides refugee resettlement programs among other services. She spent much of her early career as a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, which serves poor people.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward; Additional reporting by Jason Lange and Ted Hesson; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)
