Trump’s escalation in the struggle between the courts and his administration sent shock waves through Milwaukee and beyond.
Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025.
(Mandel Ngan / Getty)
Milwaukee—The shocking decision by Trump administration authorities to order the arrest of a veteran Wisconsin jurist on Friday morning at the Milwaukee County Courthouse—based on claims that she might have briefly helped an immigrant avoid arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents—is being denounced by legal scholars and elected officials in Wisconsin and nationally. Decried as an “outrageous” abuse of power, the arrest, argue critics like Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, shows that “Trump’s FBI is more concerned about weaponizing federal law enforcement, punishing people without due process, and intimidating anyone who opposes those policies than they are with seeking justice.”
“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” declared Wisconsin Democratic US Senator Tammy Baldwin, who called the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan “a gravely serious and drastic move that threatens to breach the [nation’s constitutionally defined] separations of power.”
“By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line,” said Baldwin, who added, “While details of this exact case remain minimal, this action fits into the deeply concerning pattern of this president’s lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his power.”
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US Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat who represents Milwaukee in the US House, said, “Federal law enforcement coming into a community and arresting a judge is a serious matter and would require a high legal bar. I will be following this case closely, and facts will come out; however, I am very alarmed at the increasingly lawless actions of the Trump administration, and in particular ICE, who have been defying court orders and acting with disregard for the Constitution.”
As news of the arrest spread to Washington, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, who taught constitutional law for decades and now serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, “It is remarkable that the administration would dare to start arresting state court judges. It’s a whole new descent into government chaos.”
Representative Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who is also a Judiciary Committee member, said there should “absolutely” be a federal inquiry into the judge’s arrest. “On the face of it,” explained Balint, “this is dangerous and outrageous, and it is designed to intimidate our judiciary.”
Judge Dugan, a fixture in the Wisconsin legal community for more than three decades and who has served as a jurist since 2016, was charged with two federal felonies (obstruction and concealing an individual) for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom.
The judge’s arrest sent shock waves through Milwaukee, a multiracial, multiethnic urban center with several large immigrant communities, and drew international attention to what the AFP newswire described as the escalation of a “growing struggle between the White House and courts over President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation policies.”
On the ground in Milwaukee, there was considerable consternation, especially after Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel posted and then deleted a Friday morning statement on X that claimed, “Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction—after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week. 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.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi later announced on X that “our @FBI agents just arrested Hannah Dugan—a county judge in Milwaukee—for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid an arrest by @ICEgov.” Bondi referred to judges who challenge the agenda of the Trump administration as “deranged” and promised such jurists: “We will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”
Judge Dugan, a former executive director of Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin and a former president of the Milwaukee Bar Association, was not hard to find. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that FBI agents arrested the judge after she arrived at the county courthouse. On Friday morning, she appeared before a federal magistrate, and she was quickly released on bond. Her lawyer, US Attorney Steven Biskupic, who served under Republican President George W. Bush, announced that Judge Dugan will “defend herself vigorously and looks to be exonerated.”
The Milwaukee paper reported that Flores-Ruiz had appeared before Judge Dugan on April 18, for a pretrial conference on misdemeanor battery charges. Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old immigrant from Mexico, was arrested the same day and is currently in ICE custody at a detention facility in Juneau, Wisconsin.
It appears that the Trump administration is concerned that, after confronting ICE agents regarding the legitimacy of their warrant, Judge Dugan instructed Flores-Ruiz to leave her courtroom by going “down a private hallway and into the public area on the sixth floor” of the courthouse. ICE agents eventually arrested him outside.
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The Journal Sentinel consulted with five legal experts, including former prosecutors and found, “None thought Dugan’s actions constituted a federal crime.” The paper also noted, “All five legal scholars said ICE’s presence in state courthouses could negatively impact public safety by scaring people away from using the courthouse for normal activities.”
A group of Milwaukee legislators, including Democratic state senators Chris Larson and Tim Carpenter, picked up on that theme when they said in a statement issued Friday, “The county courthouse is a sanctuary for justice and peace where the accused come forward willingly in a fair and unbiased process. Arresting people out of a courtroom will lead to a breakdown of civil society. We do not support the presence of ICE in places where it will lead to intimidation of witnesses and victims of crimes, denying everyone involved the justice they deserve.”
Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, summed up local sentiments when he said, “It is clear that the FBI is politicizing this situation to make an example of her and others across the country who oppose their attack on the judicial system and our nation’s immigration laws.”
Crowley add that he was “extremely concerned about the Trump administration’s continued intention to instill fear and hostility across our community.”
US Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) was blunter. “The Trump administration again is breaking norms in how it’s dealing with immigration, the legal system, and normalcy,” said Pocan. “This is stuff I expect from Third World countries.”
The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows each week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world economy and set up yet another constitutional crisis at home. Plainclothes officers continue to abduct university students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown abroad to a mega prison against the orders of the courts. And Signalgate promises to be the first of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence at the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, powerful law firms, and influential media outlets are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is more determined than ever before to hold the powerful to account.
In just the last month, we’ve published reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to other countries, exposed the administration’s appeal to obscure laws to carry out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of brave student activists targeted by universities.
We also continue to tell the stories of those who fight back against Trump and Musk, whether on the streets in growing protest movements, in town halls across the country, or in critical state elections—like Wisconsin’s recent state Supreme Court race—that provide a model for resisting Trumpism and prove that Musk can’t buy our democracy.
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