A federal judge in Minnesota has found a Trump administration lawyer in civil contempt of court over the treatment of an immigrant released from ICE custody.
U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino has ordered Matthew Isihara, a military attorney brought in to assist Pam Bondi’s Justice Department as a special assistant U.S. attorney, to pay a $500 daily fine until all “identification documents” belonging to Rigoberto Soto Jimenez are returned to him.
The Mexican national, who has lived in Minnesota since 2018 and is a legal resident of the U.S., was detained by ICE in mid-January as part of Donald Trump’s hardline mass deportation efforts. Like hundreds of other immigrants in Minnesota arrested under the administration’s Operation Metro Surge, Soto Jimenez filed a lawsuit claiming his civil rights had been violated during his detention.
Provinzino ordered Soto Jimenez to be released from ICE custody last week after ruling that immigration officials had not presented a warrant that justifies his detention. The judge then set a court hearing for Wednesday to question why the government had not only failed to release Soto Jimenez in Minnesota as ordered, but had also failed to return all his documents to him.
The judge held Isihara in civil contempt of court on Wednesday and ordered him to pay $500 for each day Soto Jimenez is not in possession of his identification documents, and the government certifies that they have been returned.
Isihara apologized to the judge for allowing the case to “fall through the cracks,” which he blamed on the high caseloads and understaffing at the U.S. attorney’s office, reported Paul Blume of Fox9.
“Judge Provinzino’s order is a lawless abuse of judicial power,” Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, said in a statement to The New York Times.
The ruling is the latest in a long line of examples in which judges have grown irate at the Trump administration for violating or ignoring court decisions related to ICE’s efforts to detain immigrants indefinitely.
Last week, Politico published a detailed analysis finding multiple examples of judges criticizing ICE and administration lawyers for failing to comply with court orders regarding detained migrants.
This included keeping individuals locked up for weeks after a judge ordered their release, or even dumping them hundreds of miles from home without their possessions, because it was not explicitly prohibited in a court ruling.
Patrick J. Schiltz, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, compiled a list of nearly 100 instances of noncompliance with court orders challenging a person’s detention since the start of January.
Elsewhere, Jordan Fox, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, admitted last week that the DOJ had violated more than 50 orders from federal judges in New Jersey involving immigrants challenging the legality of their detention.
“Federal judges are at their wits’ end when it comes to the government,” Muneer I. Ahmad, a Yale Law professor who represents immigrants as part of the school’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, told the Times.
“Judges are no longer willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the federal government that they’re acting in good faith and with the integrity expected of government lawyers. It’s really quite extraordinary.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Justice for comment.
