As Beege pointed out a couple hours ago, a judge in New Mexico is in some trouble after allowing an armed illegal immigrant with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua to live in his guest house.
Today, FBI Director Kash Patel announced another arrest. A judge in Wisconsin allegedly interfered with efforts to arrest an illegal immigrant. Patel put up a post on X about the arrest of the judge, but subsequently deleted it for some reason. Here’s what he wrote: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject —an illegal alien—to evade arrest.”
FBI Director Kash Patel appears to have deleted this post announcing the arrest of a Wisconsin judge. pic.twitter.com/3q0omNsNFO
— Tom Dreisbach (@TomDreisbach) April 25, 2025
“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” he added.
We don’t have all of the details of what happened here yet but the underlying incident seems to have taken place last week when ICE agents came to a Milwaukee courthouse to make an arrest. What follows comes from an email sent on 4/18 by Chief Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Carl Ashley.
ICE agents showed up at the courthouse in the morning and identified themselves to security. They then went to the sixth floor, where Dugan’s courtroom is located.
“They were asked whether they had a warrant, and the agents presented the warrant as well as their identification,” Ashley’s email says. “They were asked to go to Chief Judge’s office. They complied. … They presented a warrant, which we copied.”
Ashley said the ICE agents were asked to wait until the court hearing had concluded. All of the agents’ actions, he said, “were consistent with our draft policies, but we’re still in the process of conferring on the draft.”
On Monday of this week, Judge Dugan responded to Chief Judge Ashley’s email.
“As a point of clarification below, a warrant was not presented in the hallway on the 6th floor,” Dugan wrote.
Obviously, that conflicts with the Chief Judge’s account. He said they presented a warrant and their identification on the 6th floor and were then directed to his office.
But there’s another wrinkle here, which is that there are two types of warrants. A judicial warrant is a standard warrant issued by a judge to allow search or seizure. An administrative warrant is issued by an ICE official and doesn’t meet the bar set by the 4th Amendment. Another judge in the building, Judge Cabrera, claimed the ICE agents had an administrative warrant and suggested that was insufficient.
“If the proposed protocol is to accept these warrants, I find it problematic,” wrote Cabrera, who was elected in 2024. “In effect, the protocol seems to merely facilitate ICE arrests in a manner that is quiet and least disruptive to us. On the other hand, the protocol gives the illusion to the general public that steps are being taken in the courthouse to prevent ICE overreach.”
Cabrera, a former immigration lawyer and Democratic lawmaker, said federal immigration agents have made “grave errors” in their arrests, made false allegations and blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution.
So there was obviously some resistance inside the courthouse to ICE showing up with these administrative warrants to arrest people. There was a draft of a police allowing this but obviously Judge Cabrera didn’t like it and it seems Judge Dugan didn’t either.
So what did she allegedly do? For that we have to rely on a report from a local radio host. Here’s what he posted Tuesday on X:
Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge Hannah Dugan is under FBI investigation for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant defendant evade ICE agents who came to arrest him in her courtroom during a hearing Friday morning.
The defendant’s attorney was made aware of the arrest and told Dugan’s clerk, who then told Dugan. She allowed the defendant to hide in her jury room (which is normally off-limits to everyone except the judge and members of the jury).
The ICE agents presented their warrant to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, who sent them back to Dugan’s courtroom to arrest the defendant.
The FBI was notified about Dugan’s apparent obstruction of justice and is currently investigating.
EXCLUSIVE: Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge Hannah Dugan is under FBI investigation for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant defendant evade ICE agents who came to arrest him in her courtroom during a hearing Friday morning.
The defendant’s attorney was made aware of the… pic.twitter.com/3BU94pm2sr
— Dan O’Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) April 22, 2025
That account outraged a Wisconsin state representative named Bob Donovan:
“In all my years of Milwaukee politics and public safety issues, working with cops, district attorneys, and judges, I have never seen a more irresponsible act by an officer of the court, let alone a judge, if true. This borders on obstruction of justice and I hope the FBI continues a thorough investigation and, if warranted, prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.
Our laws are not suggestions; they must be upheld to maintain order in a functioning society. If Judge Dugan is insistent on aiding and abetting a criminal, she should be disbarred for violating her sworn oath to uphold the law.”
We still don’t know what Eduardo Flores Ruiz, the illegal immigrant ICE arrested, is accused/convicted of doing, but already, Brian Krassenstein is comparing him to Anne Frank being hidden from the Nazis.
BREAKING: The FBI has arrested Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an immigrant avoid capture.
History lesson: In 1944, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested and sent to concentration camps for the “crime” of hiding Anne Frank and her family.
Maybe if… pic.twitter.com/4HlnSkspce
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) April 25, 2025
I get that Krassenstein is engagement farming here, i.e. he’s being hyperbolic for clicks. But read through some of the replies and there are a fair number of people who think he’s onto something.
Update: Some more detail about what Judge Dugan allegedly did.
Dugan is accused of escorting the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, and his lawyer out of the courtroom through the jury door on April 18 as a way to help avert his arrest, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.
The affidavit quotes the courtroom deputy as having heard Dugan say words to the effect of “Wait, come with me” before ushering them into a non-public area of the courthouse. The action was unusual, the affidavit says, because “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”
So it sounds like the FBI has a witness to what happened here. Whether the judge’s actions were a crime under the circumstances is what we’ll be arguing about for weeks to come.
Here she is leaving court with her lawyer.
New video from our crews: Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan and her attorney leaving the federal courthouse in Milwaukee and not commenting. The FBI arrested her at the MKE Co Courthouse this morning. She’s charged with 2 felonies for obstructing an ICE arrest last week pic.twitter.com/3YtgsNHTJl
— Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) April 25, 2025
