Irate judge threatens criminal contempt against ICE for repeatedly defying court orders

Source: Raw Story

February 26, 2026 6:57PM ET


A Minnesota judge threatened the Trump administration with criminal contempt on Thursday over repeated ignoring of court orders. Judge Patrick Schiltz issued a scathing order Thursday, warning that he may pursue criminal contempt charges against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after finding a pattern of defiance he called unprecedented in American history. The order was flagged on Bluesky by Law Dork's Chris Geidner.

The judge said ICE had violated 97 court orders in 66 cases, and that an additional 113 violations across 77 more cases occurred largely after the government promised to improve compliance.

The ruling rebuked Daniel Rosen, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, who emailed the judge directly, accusing his Jan. 28 order of being "far beyond the pale of accuracy." After directing his clerks to independently verify every case, Schiltz concluded his original findings were essentially correct, and said Rosen's "statistically strong sample" was just the first 12 cases on a list of 75.

Schiltz noted that several government attorneys who had worked in good faith to achieve compliance — including civil division attorney Ana Voss — had since resigned.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-ice-2675343367/

BREAKING: Judge Patrick Schiltz in Minnesota threatens criminal contempt, if necessary, to address ICE noncompliance in an order calling out U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen's response to Schiltz's earlier questions about noncompliance with court orders.

"ICE will comply with this Court's orders."

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-02-26T22:36:46.878Z

In addition to reviewing his prior cited cases, Schiltz presents more than 100 additional instances of noncompliance.

Order: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-02-26T22:38:54.014Z