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Not really. There are two issues here one legal and one practical. As far as legal arguments go, the problems is that it isn't clear if what she did was actually illegal. She was charged with violating §1505 (Obstructing an Official Proceeding) and §1071 (Concealing and individual to prevent discovery or arrest). The Obstructing part is problematic because what the judge did doesn't fit into anything that's actually described under the obstruction statutes. chapter 73 of the US Criminal Code has 21 sections, and while §1505 doesn't specifically define obstruction, the sections that do make references to things like destroying documents, intimidating witnesses, bribery, and suborning perjury. Nowhere does it mention helping someone avoid apprehension by Federal agents. You can make the argument that a plain reading of the statutory language suggests that it would cover this, but the Supreme Court explicitly rejected such and argument in Fischer, saying that the context of §1512 made it clear that the statute only applied to the destruction of documents. In any event, I couldn't find any examples of §1505 being used this way before. I'm not saying this isn't going to work, but it certainly isn't open and shut.
Prosecuting under §1071 is even more of an uphill battle. Everything I could find suggests that it only applies to criminal warrants, such as the diffeing penalties for whether the concealed person is being charged with a felony or a misdemeanor. Immigration proceedings aren't criminal proceedings, though, but administrative proceedings. Again, I couldn't find any evidence of §1071 being used for an administrative proceeding.
From a practical perspective, ICE fucked up by attempting to detain the guy before his case was resolved. Typically, when a Mexican national commits a violent crime in the United States and then flees to Mexico, we don't leave it at that; we specifically request that the Mexican government extradite him for prosecution here. If he gets deported this is just the administration facilitating his escape. It may not be what he wants, personally, but even for minor crimes, the normal course of business for a criminal defendant in custody awaiting deportation is for the attorneys to request he be released from ICE custody pending the resolution of the case. This is true even for minor offenses like drunk driving, where the defendant is typically out on bail.
So even if this guy is out on bail on domestic battery charges, deporting him to Mexico makes his case impossible to prosecute, and even if ICE is willing to allow him to return for court appearances, it's impossible for the court to monitor his compliance with bail conditions, and he has little incentive to return to the US for criminal prosecution. The ideal situation, from a criminal justice perspective, is to allow him to stay in Wisconsin until his case is either dismissed or his sentence complete, and then begin deportation proceedings. By deporting him now, you only get half a loaf.
This isn't how this usually works. ICE will go through the rigamarole of bringing someone back for some very serious felonies like murder and other Class X (or A, or 1 depending on what state we are talking about) violent felonies. They aren't bringing someone back for a DV unless someone was at least seriously permanently disfigured. In this specific case the case number is 2025CM000814. Although I am not a Wisconsin criminal attorney, I have >90% confidence that stands for "Criminal Misdemeanor" as it does in dozens of jurisdictions I am more familiar with.
In fact, the bail issue is why ICE probably detained him instead of letting the case go to pendency. If he was a murderer, ICE could be fairly confident Wisconsin's courts and law enforcement would detain him, or put him on EM+home confinement or something similar. Instead, his paltry DV charge means he will be walking around Wisconsin for months, if not years only for the victim to probably recant and/or for him to be sentenced to something like 12 months of court supervision. All that time he will have freedom to flee from ICE. ICE also simply doesn't have the space and manpower to detain him themselves and bring him to all his court appearances. Of course defendant's attorneys request that ICE let the case be resolved prior to detention. 1, that is how they get paid, and 2, its ultimately a lot better for their client, PARTICULARLY with misdemeanors. One of the worst things for an illegal alien is to miss court because you got deported because then the next time you get a traffic ticket (and lets be honest you will, that's probably how you got caught in the first place for whatever case you are in court for) there will be a warrant for your arrest. Then you get sent back to that courtroom and ICE can find you all over again. If you clear up the DUI, then get deported, you can sneak right back in and local law enforcement won't run you through the list of deported persons, while the would have run you through the list of nationwide warrants.
There really is no loaf for criminal justice in these charges. He's certain to get minimal to no punishment. The only purpose not deporting him serves is to enable his escape. And again, his failure to appear is kind of a hidden benefit because a more reasonable judge (obviously this one would not) would put out a warrant for his arrest and if he ever came back he'd be right back in that courtroom.
Wisconsin has open court records, so you can view the case details here: https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2025CM000814&countyNo=40&index=0&mode=details#summary. It does indeed appear to be three charges of misdemeanor battery.
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Why? The text of the statute refers to "any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States". The text seems pretty broad. Any valid federal warrant must be issued under the provisions of a law of the United States right? Or am I missing something?
EDIT: Also, wouldn't 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(3) apply? Does having ICE agents show up and present an administrative warrant count as knowledge or reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law?
The issue is that an administrative warrant doesn't really count as a warrant. The whole point of warrant requirements in most situations is that a neutral party (i.e., a judge) has the opportunity to review the evidence and determine that certain actions are, well, warranted. An administrative warrant is issued by the enforcing agency itself, and as such has certain limitations. Most notably for our purposes, ICE agents with an administrative warrant can't enter a private residence to look for a subject the way normal police executing an actual arrest warrant can. So if you're my roommate and you're hiding from ICE and they show up at the door and I answer I can simply tell them to go fuck themselves and there's nothing they can do about it. Since this is the case, they usually have to resort to ruses like pretending they need a guy to sign for a package or acting like they're local police (without actually pretending to be local police) in order to get the guy to come to the door.
Since it's widely recognized that a judge's courtroom is a private area, upon learning that the agents only had an administrative warrant, she told them they couldn't do anything in her courtroom and would have to arrest him in one of the common areas of the courthouse. And she was accordingly under no obligation to make sure that the guy got into the common areas of the courthouse, anymore than a roommate is under an obligation to allow ICE agents inside.
As for §1324, I'm not going to comment on that since the judge wasn't charged under that statute. It's possible it could apply here, but I don't know.
I don't really think that follows. A federal officer in furtherance of their job cannot be arbitrarily prohibited from entering a State courthouse. This is approaching 'standing in the schoolhouse door' levels of nullification -- after all, a schoolhouse isn't a public space either, it is a private area for students and teachers only. I can't imagine anyone defending 1960s Montgomery officials telling the 101st Airborne they can't step inside.
[ I agree with respect to a private residence and the 4A, but a courthouse gets zero protection from the 4A and the analogy is extremely tenuous. ]
But even accepting this (dubitante, as they say), it would be still be obstruction to use that 'private area' to play a shell game with federal officers.
And finally, on a subjective note, this seems like ICE agents doing the right things due-process wise. Having been downvoted to hell for insisting on due process, I feel honor bound to turn around and say that ICE officers who do follow the procedure are due some deference.
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Dugan was under no obligation to permit ICE in her courtroom but she exceeded passive refusal into affirmative acts of concealment and harboring when she warned Flores-Ruiz and escorted him through the jury door. You don't have to let ICE in, you can't warn your roommate and say "I'll keep them busy while you book it." She should face those as charges in addition to obstruction.
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What Judge Dugan is alleged to have done is basically this, so... seems like she's in the clear.
Kind of surprised a federal judge signed off on her arrest.
An individual home or place of residence (even temporary, like a hotel room) is due special protection from the 4A.
This is not true for a judge in a courtroom, any more than it is for any other employee at their place of work.
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How likely are federal judges to sign off on "contempt of cop" arrests? I would guess "not very," but perhaps that's wrong or the judge happened to be a bad one. Even if we accept that she didn't commit a statutory violation, "you may beat the wrap, but you can't beat the ride," and the Trump administration seems to be embracing "the process is the punishment."
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After the January 6 charges, there can't possibly be any limits on "obstructing an official proceeding".
You missed the reference to Fisher, which is is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_v._United_States That was the January 6 case where the Supreme Court placed limits on “obstructing an official proceeding.”
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Well, the Supreme Court ruled that there are. If the court had ruled differently, we could have that discussion, but they didn't so here we are.
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