Feds charge Wisconsin judge with felonies for helping illegal immigrant escape ICE

The Justice Department has lodged two federal felony charges against a local judge in Wisconsin accusing her of helping an illegal immigrant duck out of her courtroom before he could be nabbed by immigration officers.

Judge Hannah Dugan, who sits in Milwaukee, has been charged with obstructing a government proceeding and with concealing an individual from arrest.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Judge Dugan “screamed” at a deportation officer and tried to order him and other federal agents out of the courthouse.

When they wouldn’t leave, Judge Dugan ordered them to go see the chief judge — and she used that opportunity to let Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the illegal immigrant, out through a nonpublic door, the FBI said in court documents.

Mr. Flores-Ruiz was appearing in court on domestic violence charges, but Judge Dugan allowed him to escape without even facing a hearing, leaving the alleged victims and even the state prosecutor in the dark, the FBI said in its affidavit.

“You cannot obstruct a criminal case,” Ms. Bondi said on Fox News on Friday. “Shame on her.”

Judge Dugan was granted pretrial release. No lawyer was listed in the court file for her Friday afternoon.

Democrats rallied to the judge. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called it “chilling” even as he acknowledged he didn’t know “all the facts.”

“This is a drastic escalation and dangerous new front in Trump’s authoritarian campaign of trying to bully, intimidate and impeach judges who won’t follow his dictates,” said the Maryland lawmaker, who is also a constitutional law professor. “We must do whatever we can to defend the independent judiciary in America.”

The National Women’s Law Center called it part of President Trump’s “contempt for the courts and our Constitution.”

“The FBI’s apparent decision to make an example of Judge Dugan is part of a broader and deeply alarming agenda to silence dissent, incite fear, and erode the very institutions that protect our rights. The Trump administration’s lawlessness is a threat to everyone in this country,” said Alison Gill, director of nominations and democracy at the NWLC.

But Ms. Bondi said the case was a poor place for the president’s opponents to make a stand.

She said Mr. Flores-Ruiz had been deported once before, in 2013, and had no right to come back. Officers were trying to reinstate that previous deportation.

Ms. Bondi also said the local case against Mr. Flores-Ruiz accused him of beating a man and a woman badly enough to send them to the hospital.

Multiple witnesses confirmed Judge Dugan’s unusual behavior to the FBI, according to the affidavit accompanying the charges. That included a state prosecutor, a victim witness specialist who was there to help the two alleged victims, and the courtroom deputy on duty that morning in Judge Dugan’s courtroom.

They said Judge Dugan was already on the bench presiding over cases when she learned a team of federal agents, including a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer, a Customs and Border Protection officer, two FBI agents and two Drug Enforcement Administration agents were present as part of a deportation task force.

When a lawyer told her ICE agents were present, she became angry and said the situation was “absurd,” the FBI said.

According to the affidavit, she then ordered the deportation officer to leave the courthouse, but the officer refused. The officer said they had a warrant to arrest Mr. Flores-Ruiz.

Judge Dugan then asked if it was a “judicial warrant,” and the officer said it was an administrative warrant. The judge said the team needed a judicial warrant — a common misunderstanding for those not familiar with immigration law.

The officer replied that the administrative warrant was valid for making an arrest in a public place.

Judge Dugan then sent the team to see the chief judge, the FBI said.

A DEA agent who hadn’t been recognized as part of the team stayed behind, however, and reported seeing Judge Dugan check the area and “appeared to be looking for additional agents” before returning to her courtroom. That’s when she waved Mr. Flores-Ruiz through her courtroom jury door, which is not public.

“Wait, come with me,” the FBI said, a witness recounted her saying.

Mr. Flores-Ruiz made it out of the courthouse, but the federal team spotted him and chased him down on foot.

Judge Dugan isn’t the first to face federal charges for assisting an illegal immigrant.

In 2019, prosecutors brought charges against Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph in Massachusetts after authorities said she assisted an illegal immigrant in evading arrest. ICE officers were waiting in the courthouse to pick him up.

Judge Joseph ordered the officer to remain outside her courtroom under a local policy limiting cooperation with ICE. After an off-the-record conversation with the illegal immigrant’s lawyer, Judge Joseph let the man go back downstairs through a side entrance. Another court officer let the man escape out a back door.

The Biden Justice Department dropped the charges against Judge Joseph in 2022 after she agreed to submit herself to the state’s judicial conduct board.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a local judge resigned — and he and his wife have now been charged — after authorities said they were harboring a Venezuelan illegal immigrant connected to the Tren de Aragua gang, now a designated terrorist organization.

Joel and Nancy Cano had taken Cristhian Ortega-Lopez into their Las Cruces home sometime last year, according to court documents.

Authorities say the Canos’ daughter, April, allowed Mr. Ortega-Lopez to use her guns for shooting. Federal authorities also linked Mr. Ortega-Lopez to TdA through his social media accounts, tattoos, clothing and “hand gestures.”