A law enforcement agency executing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has been described as a serial violator of court orders in Minnesota.
“ICE is not a law unto itself,” Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote this week, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Schiltz, 65, has been a judge for about 20 years after being nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. He served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a noted conservative jurist, and was a practicing attorney and law professor.
“This is not a judge who courts controversy,” said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis.
“He has a deep belief in the rule of law,” Osler said. ”Our social contract includes that when government officials are ordered by the courts to do something, there should be a good faith effort to make that happen. When we lose that we lose the accountability for government that an ordered society requires.”
On Monday, Schiltz said he was taking the “extraordinary” step of ordering ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, to appear and explain why he should not be held in contempt for the agency’s failure to comply with orders. The Department of Homeland Security responded by calling him an “activist judge.” Schiltz canceled the hearing after an immigrant in that case was released.
